Punch Clock Villain: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.''
|''[[Small Gods]]''}}
Like a [[Hired Guns|mercenary]], but with none of the [[Badass]].
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Used to be an odd device but has become increasingly frequent due to the popularity of superhero parody, where minions are portrayed as sympathetic employees for unreasonable bosses. In addition, nearly all anime featuring a comedic villain usually has these, who are frequently cute characters.
Conversely if played ''seriously'', the emotional detachment that the '''Punch Clock Villain''' displays when he or she knowingly contributes to various atrocities can be chilling, and audiences may see them as a [[Complete Monster]]. Depending on the nature of the story this trope can make a villain either more relatable to audience or more hateful.
Many Punch Clock Villains may execute a [[Heel Face Turn]] at the very, VERY end of the film.
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{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Subverted: Mana Tatsumiya, the gun-wielding mercenary shrine maiden from ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', only ''pretends'' to be a Punch Clock Villain; in actual fact, she joined up with the antagonists during a particular story arc because she truly believes in their cause. Of course, she's still getting paid.
** Canis Niger (the gang of bounty hunters that Negi kicked the crap out of), however, truly qualify. A dozen or so chapters after Negi wrecks them, he runs into them in the bath house, where they promptly reassure him that they won't hurt him unless someone pays them to. The worst that they do is a ''lot'' of [[Skinship Grope]], courtesy of their female member. {{spoiler|Remember the [[All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles|perverted tentacle guy]]? [[Samus Is a Girl|It's not a guy]]. But she still ''really'' [[Skinship Grope|loves boobies]].}}
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* In the ''[[GetBackers]]'' manga, Gouzou "Mr. No-Brakes" Maguruma is somewhere between this and [[True Neutral]]. He's the only character who has no problems with [[Psycho for Hire|Kuroudo "Doctor Jackal" Akabane]] and [[Complete Monster|Ryuudo "Undead" Hishiki]], the former being someone the eponymous heroes can work with if absolutely necessary, but the latter the only opponent they go out of their way to avoid. Someone usually hires him to transport the item someone ''else'' hired Ban and Ginji to get back, but he's perfectly willing to loan them his taxi or give them a lift if they ask for it. Ginji reacts with his "happy fans" whenever they see him.
* Florsheim in ''[[Tentai Senshi Sunred]]'' are completely this trope. Sunred himself is a bit of a jerk, so the group has to work around their [[Monster of the Week]]'s work schedules, see when a good time to schedule a fight with Sunred is, and still talk about life on the side.
* In the fourth ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' anime season, the Amazon Trio, [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] of the Dead Moon Circus, always lounge around their own personal bar between evildoing, drinking, talking about various things, complaining about the stress of their jobs, and generally regarding their villainy as a bothersome intrusion to their circus performing. Their successors, the Amazon Quartet, are a strange subversion....unlike the Trio, they ''do'' truly care about the mission to capture Pegasus; however, it's not for the same reason as their boss....they just want to ride it.
* Most of the Siberian Railroad from ''[[Overman King Gainer]]'', Jaboli, Kajinan, and Enge in particular are usually obsessed with getting promoted for a higher pay.
* ''[[Porco Rosso]]'' has a whole set of these. In fact, every single one of the seaplane pirates that form the closest thing to antagonists that the first half of the movie has is very much a Punch Clock Villain. They all put on a tough show of hating "that stinkin' pig", but as a collective, they're about as evil as a box of kittens and are pretty much just out to make a quick buck.
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* [[Bad Boss|Lord]] [[Big Bad|Frieza's]] army, most notably the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Ginyu Force]], from ''[[Dragonball Z]]''.
* ''[[The World of Narue]]'' has a team of [[Ridiculously-Human Robots|gynoids]] who are only "villains" because they follow orders. Then they start [[Mook Face Turn|disobeying orders]] because they realize they like the protagonists.
* ''[[Goshuushou
** {{spoiler|Of course, they aren't really even working for "villains", anyway, just people with an [[Omniscient Morality License]]}}.
* ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' has Bruno, who works for the Padania by disposing the bodies they rack up. He mentions at some point that ideals are nice, but they don't feed your family.
* The Dragons of Earth in ''[[X 1999]]'' are not particularly evil after hours, they just happen to be on the opposite side of the Dragons of Heaven. Their goal is one of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremism]].
* In ''[[Code Geass]]'', the Knights of the Round are all [[Punch Clock Villains]], except for Number Ten, who is a sadistic psychopath. They have no motivations for what they do (with the exception of Suzaku and Bismarck) other than that it's their job and they're good at it.
* Almost ''[[Gray and Gray Morality|everyone]]'' on [[Melee a Trois|every single side]] in ''[[Darker
* "[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]] only do bad things because Master bad."
** Jessie and James themselves sometimes go back and forth between this and [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]. Some episodes, they seem to simply take the day off to work side jobs like selling food. They usually stop stealing when Jessie enters a Pokémon Contest.
* Vice Commander Renee in ''[[Innocent Venus]]'' is a Punch Clock Villain, which predictably leads to a [[Heel Face Turn]], of course.
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* The Eiserne Jungefrauen in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' are magic-denying witch [[The Hunter|hunters]], but only when they're on the job as Inquisitors. Otherwise, they don't mind innocent magic that is used as an embellishment, as long as it doesn't hide the results of what happens. [[Sdrawkcab Name|Dlanor]], in particular, has a discussion with [[Worthy Opponent|Battler]], explaining this [[Go-Karting with Bowser|over tea]].
* Kyouko, one of the enemy espers in ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', has nothing against the protagonist Kyon, and even disapproves of {{spoiler|her organization kidnapping Mikuru}}, though she still took part in the deed. She's a perfectly congenial person as long as you aren't in favor of letting Haruhi keep her {{spoiler|godlike powers.}}
* Caldina, pre [[Heel Face Turn]], in ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]''. She was just a paid mercenary and did not even know what Zagato's true motivation
* In ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', {{spoiler|Kyubey turns out to be one of these, and is willing to go to some pretty serious lengths in order to meet his "quota" of magical girls}}.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'':
** Most of the Card Professors from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! R]]'' have nothing against Yugi or his friends even as they block their rescue mission, and duel Yugi only to collect the bounty placed upon defeating him in the duel (and they don't even try to cheat to win, which is saying something because the amount offered is sizable). On the other hand, the concept of an innocent girl being sacrificed for their boss' project (assuming they know the truth at all) doesn't seem to trouble them, either.
** In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS]]'', Otes has six [[Perky Female Minion]]s, and all of them fit this Trope, clearly a big reason why Yuga is able to defeat him in the [[Final Battle]]. The [[Crazy Awesome| duel itself]] is done in outer space using [[Humongous Mecha]]s, the six girls acting as the crew for Otes’ robot, helping him by using a variety of weapons to disable or damage Yuga’s craft (far from the only dirty trick the bad guys in this series use) but {{spoiler| when their clock hits six o’clock, they bail on him and he’s on his own - he’s not paying them overtime! Truth be told, however, this is not a scheduling mistake on Otes’ part, as it was not yet six o' clock - Nana ([[The Dragon]] to another villain) had set the clock ahead, counting on this to happen, as [[Even Evil Has Standards| she could not condone Otes’ plan]].}}
* The Wire Master in ''[[Mouse]]'' has this, where both he and the main character enjoy a drink together because it was a Sunday, and they didn't wish to work on a Sunday.
* [[Ax Crazy]] Shin and [[Genki Girl]] Noi from ''[[Dorohedoro]]''. Both are quite friendly when off the job and [[Big Eater|are often seen in restaurants.]] However, Shin seems to enjoy his job [[Blood Knight|a little too much]], and Noi remains cheerful while killing (and occasionally makes it a contest with Shin), so they both demonstrate the thin line between this trope and [[Psycho for Hire]].
* Kahlua from ''[[Rosario
* Most of the Thirteen Court Guard Squad Captains during the Entry arc of ''[[Bleach]]'' would qualify as this. Especially Shunsui Kyoraku, the captain of Squad Eight.
** Later on, Espada member Coyote Starrk is a borderline if not outright example.
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* This arguably applies to most of the Shinigami in ''[[Death Note]]''. It really is only their duty to take humans' lives, and they only truly qualify as "evil" insofar as the occasional decision to kill a human earlier than intended - and doing so to save another is an offense for which death is punishment.
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* The [[Batman|Harley Quinn]] comic book showed the "business side" of being a henchman in Gotham City, as Harley basically held auditions. (Looking, like most Bat Villains, not just for muscle but ''stylish'' muscle). The group she wound up with, the Quinntet, were all veterans of other Gotham villains' gangs, and discussed it almost as if they'd been in theater productions.
** ''Streets of Gotham'' loves this trope, as it has already introduced an affably villainous "just business" realtor-to-supervillains, and a carpenter, both of whom work on the utmost principles of discretion.
* In ''[[Birds of Prey]]'', Huntress and [[Black Canary]] go disguised as former minions of Penguin and Riddler to a large meeting of Gotham's hired muscle. It turns out, rather than planning some massive heist as they originally thought, the guy who called them is actually trying to form them into a unofficial union in an effort to get better pay and treatment by the main villains who hire them.
* The ''[[Deadpool]]'' comic book upgrades the faceless minions of HYDRA into Punch Clock Villains, mostly through the info we receive from Deadpool's kidnapped <s>pet</s> minion Bob, Agent of HYDRA. Through him we learn that some of the minions of HYDRA doesn't care about the "take over the world" agenda, they just can't find work anywhere else. They also fear and hate [[Captain America (comics)]], Elektra and Wolverine. However, one downside of working for HYDRA is that they don't get dental insurance.
** Deadpool himself once stopped midway through a fight with Spider-Man when he realized he was off the clock. Though villain is a pretty harsh word, considering the fight at that point had degraded to a "Yo Momma" contest.
* In the first issue of the ''[[The Invisibles]]'', King Mob kills a whole slew of security guards while trying to break Dane out of a juvenile facility run by the [[Cosmic Horror|Archons of the Outer Church]]. About twelve issues later, we see the life of one of those security
* The Shocker, an [[Unfortunate Names|unfortunately named]] ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' villain, differs from his peers mainly due to the fact that he considers supervillainy more of a job than a way of life. He is essentially a gifted inventor that considers robbing banks to be more entertaining than a typical desk job, and has taken pains to avoid causing casualties in the past.
** Later, he starts working for Hammer Industries, which hires him out as muscle, where he literally punches into work and has a supervisor, etc.
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* One of the concentration camp guards in ''[[Maus]]'' is shown to be surprisingly affable, acting friendly with prisoners and reminiscing about beautiful countrysides. When one day he comes to work incredibly chilled and frightened, acting harshly with the prisoners, Vladek guesses that the guard witnessed a mass killing since he was stationed for a time at Birkenau (or Auschwitz II) before coming back.
* Ron Gomz in ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' was hired by the team's benefactor Thayer Jost to take them on as a publicity stunt... but when he attacks and finds out they cancelled their contract with Jost (and consequently he wasn't going to get paid), he had a bit of a meltdown of properly villainous proportions.
* The Human Flying Fish from the latest{{when}} ''[[Aquaman]]'' series. As he says, he's just a wage slave doing his job: they design the suit, they get to pick the name and the color scheme, he gets to beat people up.
* The new Big Wheel in ''[[Ghost Rider]]'', who even goes so far as to say "nothing personal" and that this is just work for him.
* In ''[[Little Gloomy]]'', Simon von Simon's hunchback assistant Boris honestly couldn't care less about whatever project Simon is working on; he's a hunchback, so mad scientist lab assistant is the only job he can really get. He also tells Frank that he's just doing his job before hacking him to pieces with an axe. When Simon's castle blows up, not only is Boris long gone (the gig was clearly going sour), his first thought is sifting through the newspaper's want ads for new employment.
* ''[[Atomic Robo]]'' portrays most German soldiers this way, making sure that the readers see them as human beings.
{{quote|
* Eric Finch from ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' could be considered to fit into this category, depending largely on one's political perspective.
* Most of the thugs, minions, and lackeys in ''[[Empowered]]'' are pretty decent guys, especially the protagonist's boyfriend and his buddies. The segment where he explains that killing superheroes is even dumber than killing cops is ''hilarious'', and makes an enormous amount of sense.
* In the Evanier/Spiegle run of ''[[Blackhawk]]'', Professor Merson is an American scientist who designs [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|wonder weapons]] like the [[Monowheel Mayhem|War Wheel]] for the Nazis. But only because they pay him. After finally being captured by the Blackhawks and in British custody, Merson happily switches sides to work for the Allies after [[Winston Churchill]] offers him more money.
* Spoofed in a ''[[The Far Side]]'' comic, where a series of woodland creatures are shown lining up at a pair of punch clocks, labeled "Predators" and "Prey" respectively. ▼
* When the ''[[Thunderbolts]]'' were turned over to HAMMER in the wake of ''[[Dark Reign (comics)|Dark Reign]]'', one of Norman Osborn's immediate hires was Paladin. Paladin has made a name for himself in the Marvel Universe as a reliable mercenary who gets the job done and doesn't ask questions, and he stays true to that reputation for much of his tenure with the team. He knows Osborn is crazy and that what he's doing is wrong, but, well, as long as there's money, you know?
* [[Neil Gaiman]] offered some examples in his ''[[The Sandman]]'' comics. Most notable is Caine, who routinely and casually murders his brother Abel. In ''The Wake'' it is revealed that Abel is a dream; Caine murders him over and over because it's his gig, and he has a contract that says so.
** While he does have a contract, it's rather strongly implied that he suffers from some sort of compulsion, unless his promise to "do 'it' less often" when he gives Abel a new pet gargoyle is standard abuser behavior. Either way, he leans into [[Psycho for Hire]] territory.
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[A Young Girl's Delinquency Record]]'', Mary states that this trope is a plot twist in the movie ''[[Show Within a Show|Arenne]]''. Mary has a grudge against the character the movie’s villain is based on, so maybe she was more keen on regarding it as a plot twist than most.
== Films ==
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* Vincent and Jules from ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' relate to this trope. One minute they're chatting jovially about mayonnaise on fries. The next, they're pulling off the hits they're paid for. It's subtly lampshaded in an early scene: Arriving at an apartment for a hit, they check their watches, find out it's not time to go on the clock yet, and hang back a few minutes to finish a conversation they were having.
* A couple of [[Regional Bonus]] scenes from the first ''[[Austin Powers]]'' film show Dr. Evil's security mooks to be family men with normal social lives, and explore the tragic results of their death. These scenes appeared in North America as [[DVD Bonus Content]]
* Although they don't get ''paid'' per se, this trope sums up the entire point of the [[Terminator
{{quote|
'''The Terminator:''' Of course. I'm a Terminator. }}
* In the film ''''[[Bon Cop, Bad Cop]]'', Officer David Bouchard recounts killing an entire houseful of criminals, but sparing the vicious attack dog because it was "just doing its job."
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** The hired thug going after Max and Agent 99 is {{spoiler|actually dealing with marital problems. Max, having stated early in the movie that evil is what villains do, not who they are, uses this information to save both himself and 99, and inspire this villain to become the Reverse Mole for him later on}}.
** After putting up with yet more verbal abuse, Shtarker at one point gripes that he wants to quit, but can't because Siegfried is married to his sister.
* The Mortuary Keeper in [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'ed film ''[[Space Mutiny]]''. He's just there running the facility where failed Mooks are frozen until necessary. He may work for the villain but when the heroes arrive he asks if they need help or would like a cup of tea. He also answers all their questions about the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Evil Plan]]. He doesn't really seem evil at all.
* ''[[The Godfather]]'' films, especially the first and [[Discontinuity|third]], have [[The Mafia|organized crime bosses]] say "it's not personal... it's strictly business" (or some variation thereof) regarding their business affairs. The one scene from the novel sadly not in the movie had Michael comment on this and basically call it rubbish. He then goes on to describe his father as never treating his affairs as "just business" and speculate this is what had made him great.
* The three main characters of ''[[In Bruges]]'', the [[Odd Couple]] protagonists and the [[Big Bad]], are all this trope.
* Although there are no ''direct'' examples, the film ''[[Cube]]'' implies the builders of the eponymous [[Death Course]] were of this nature.
{{quote|
* Dee Jay in the ''[[Street Fighter (film)|Street Fighter]]'' movie, who not only does his job only for the money, but clearly hates every single person in the organization, as he also doubles as the [[Deadpan Snarker]]. He ends up trying to escape with Bison's money only to find out that it's Bison dollars, which are worthless.
* The teen protagonist of ''[[The Manhattan Project]]'' is hunted by gun-toting government agents that repeatedly threaten to kill him if he does not turn over his homemade nuclear weapon. One of these agents assures him it was nothing personal later in the film just before they may all die in an unintended detonation. (And in all fairness, they were government agents acting legally to protect the public from an unauthorized ''Plutonium-Bomb''!)
* In ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', Kurtz gets a monologue on the subject:
{{quote|
** This is actually a distorted retelling of another sort of punch-clockery: soldiers in the Belgian Congo were accused of wasting ammunition, so they were told they'd have to bring back a hand for every native they claimed killed... so to save some ammunition for hunting, they took to cutting off hands from the living. John Milius took an example of barbarism for pecuniary gain and turned it into a parable of how thinking men can turn themselves into monsters for an ideology....
* ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'' has the Genterns, sexy sadistic nurses who put up with an awful lot for their well-paying jobs (including occasionally being raped or murdered by a Largo child). There's also the Repo Men, sociopathic organ retrieval experts armed with very large scalpels. One of the Repo Men is a
* A [[Take That]] is delivered in ''[[Taken (film)|Taken]]'', where Patrice, the auctioneer of the would-be sex slaves, tries to insist that "It's all business. It wasn't personal!" Of course, since his last "sale" was Bryan's daughter, "It was all personal to me" and Patrice gets the rest of the bullets in Bryan's pistol clip.
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' examples:
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* Captain Louis Renault in ''[[Casablanca]]'', who makes it clear he's happy to cooperate with the Nazis as long as they remain in power, without caring about their ideology one way or another.
* To an extent, Greg in ''[[Mystery Team]]''.
* Inigo Montoya and Fezzik are punchclock villains while working as goons for Vizzini in ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''. Inigo even [[Lampshade Hanging|states outright]] that he's only a
* Administrative Assistant Bob from ''[[Demolition Man]]'' simply sees it as his duty to serve whoever is in charge, which is how he goes from helping [[The Chessmaster|Dr. Raymond Cocteau]] to [[Ax Crazy|Simon Phoenix]] to [[Rebellious Spirit|Edgar Friendly]].
* Petrov appears to be this for the Bolsheviks in ''[[Doctor Zhivago]]''; however he bends the rules for [[Even Evil Has Standards|family members]].
* ''[[The Mexican]]'' has a cute one: James Gandolfini playing Winston Baldry abducts Julia Roberts because "it's my job", then the two of them start a girly friend relationship (turns out this punch clock villain is also a [[Badass Gay]]) and just to prove this trope right he {{spoiler|executes a [[Heel Face Turn]]}}.
* In ''[[The Cabin in the Woods]]'', {{spoiler|all the people working at the facility.}} An example of the darker side of this trope, as {{spoiler|the fact that it's just a job means they set up a betting pool, pride themselves on good work, and have a party once it's over. They don't do it out of malice, but they don't care or regret it either.}}
== Literature ==
* After {{spoiler|Voldemort's Death Eaters take over the Ministry of Magic}} in ''[[Harry Potter
* Every [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] in most [[Franz Kafka]] novels.
* Damon "Demon" Larkham in [[Matthew Reilly]]'s ''Scarecrow''. He runs a ruthless, highly efficient (they ''exterminate the Taliban'') and technologically advanced band of mercenaries (called [[Shout-Out|IG-88]]), but he still gets beaten by the heroes. {{spoiler|At the end of the novel, he and his men corner [[The Lancer|Aloysius Knight]]. Just as Knight has a huge [[Oh Crap]] moment, Larkham gives a short speech about how "what happens on the field stays on the field," congratulates Knight, then walks away.}}
* Inigo Montoya even [[Lampshade Hanging|points out his own status]] as a Punch Clock Villain in ''[[The Princess Bride (novel)|The Princess Bride]]'', telling Westley that "there's not a lot of money in revenge."
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** As seen in the quote above, the torturers of the Omnian Quisition in the
** Also the original incarnation of the Cable Street Particulars. In ''[[
** On a slightly more sympathetic note, in ''[[
** Not quite a villain but Professor John Hi<s>cks</s>x Head of the Department of <s>necr</s> Post-Mortem Communications is required by University Statute to commit evil acts.
*** ''Moderately'' evil acts, at least. Like pressuring people to attend community theatre productions.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' novel "The Resurrection Casket", the hideous interdimensional monster Kevin is not evil or ravenous, or anything a monster is. He'd be entirely content simply hanging out at a pub and watching a football game with his pals, but when someone is given a cursed piece of paper, he's duty-bound to kill them, or he'll be sent to a hell dimension until called back.
* In ''[[The Dark Tower
** He also makes sure the Breakers are treated very well (because they do better work if they're happy, but still). They get everything they want except the right to leave the grounds, and he has the man who raped one of them publicly executed.
* Captain Ramballe of the French army that invades Russia in ''[[War and Peace]]'' is very much this. He sits down with Pierre in occupied Moscow and offers him dinner and wine, discussing how the Russians performed splendidly at the [[Battle Royale With Cheese|Battle of Borodino]], commending them for such a fine job at defending their own country.
* In ''[["If This Goes
* One subversion is mentioned in ''[[Honor Harrington]]''. The People's Republic of Haven mans concentration camps with real villains who ''like'' being villains and not just punch clock villains. The type of people in [[State Sec]] who get [[Political Officer|fleet duty]] or work as intelligence officers, are often the types that would be chaplains or psychologists in the former case and intelligence officers in the later case in any state's defense system rather then professionals in atrocity.
* Sergeant Zim and the other Boot Camp NCOs from the book ''[[Starship Troopers]]''. While not technically evil, their job is to make sure that the 90% who can't cope with being in the M.I. or don't want the franchise bad enough drop out as early as possible. It is stated that the suffering they induce is too impersonal to be the work of a bully, that "Basic training is made AS HARD AS POSSIBLE, and for good reasons", and that all NCOs are decent (by NCO standards) to the ones who are left, when they know they are going to hack it.
* In accordance with the [[Truth in Television]] mentioned below, the British heroes of the ''[[Aubrey-Maturin]]'' series and their French opponents often enjoy each other's company when on land or after one of them has surrendered. One reoccurring Punch-Clock Villain is Captain Christy-Palliere, who eventually becomes their ally in ''The Hundred Days'' when the French military forces split between Bonaparte and Louis XVIII.
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* Derk from ''[[Diana Wynne Jones|Dark Lord of Derkholm]]'' is this trope in the extreme. He's a completely sweet and loveable wizard whose only wish is to work on his [[Biological Mashup|experimental creatures]], but due to the extremely oppressive "boss" of his ''entire world,'' he's forced to play the [[Big Bad]] in his world for "tourists."
* ''[[American Gods]]'' contains a disturbing example in the form of a glance inside the head of a kindly Nazi working the gas chambers in a concentration camp: "... and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy as the earth is cleansed of its pests."
** The antagonists of the novel (the modern [[Anthropomorphic Personification
* ''Every'' baddie in ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'', as [[
* Some of the recent ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' novels which focus on people working for the Empire embrace this trope. ''[[Star Wars/Allegiance|Allegiance]]'' has five stormtroopers whose consciences eventually override their willingness to take orders, though admittedly they didn't have a choice about leaving. ''[[Death Star]]'' is about a collection of people working on, well, the Death Star. A trooper, a gunnery officer, a cantina operator, a couple of convicts, a surgeon, a pilot, a librarian. It's also about Admiral Motti, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Darth Vader, so it's partly a [[Villain Protagonist]] novel, but the other characters all assumed the Death Star would never be used on an inhabited world. As the surgeon tells Leia while he's treating her after torture, [[Resignations Not Accepted|he can't leave]].
** The gunnery officer who actually hit the final button to fire the superlaser was one of the main characters. He is immensely humanized; we learn that what he'd always wanted was to fire the biggest gun, that he sort of cheated in arm wrestling because a tendon had been torn and reattached in a stronger place, that he backed up his fellow gunners. He also followed orders. [[Earthshattering Kaboom|The prison planet]], well, it was inhabited almost entirely by convicts, but some of them had been political prisoners or wrongfully convicted or guards. He saw Alderaan, though, as his personal [[Moral Event Horizon]], making him one of the biggest mass-murderers ever, bringing him misery beyond his wildest dreams. He was the one saying "Stand by" when the Death Star was in range of Yavin - he knew that if he refused they would just get another gunner and give him a death mark, but he desperately didn't want to fire again and was fervently hoping that something would come up. And it did. Poor bastard.
** The Death Star cantina? Eddie Izzard [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw got there first] ([[Not Safe for Work|NSFW]]).
** Also, from the [[New Jedi Order]] books is [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Yuuzhan Vong]] Shaper Nen Yim. While most of her colleagues are straight [[Mad Scientist
* As did Randall and a passing customer in ''[[Clerks]]'', considering the deaths of civilian contractors on the half-built second Death Star. Although it's played with, as the passing
* The demons, or spirits as they like to be called, are portrayed this way in ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]''. {{spoiler|At least until the third book.}}
* This is a huge part of the premise to Salman Rushdie's ''[[Haroun and the Sea of Stories]]''. [[Big Bad]] Katham-Shud's henchmen are all unimpressive clerks who are doing very boring-looking jobs that just happen to be ruining imagination as we know it. Subverted by Katham-Shud himself, who ''looks'' like a Punch Clock Villain but is more of a [[Card-Carrying Villain]].
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** Offset by the fact that tax collectors were known for taking what was owed the government, and then taking pretty much whatever they felt like, meaning that they were little more than thieves employed by the government.
*** That is, when they actually WERE employed by the government. The Roman Empire often made use of "Tax Farming," the practice of selling the authority to gather tax moneys. The purchaser could squeeze people as hard as they liked under the tax laws, and any extra they got was profit. This practice was common in Europe through the Middle Ages, and is likely the cause of the heavy taxes often mentioned in Robin Hood and similar stories.
* In Theodore Cogswell's short story ''Wolfie'', Dr. Arsoldi is a sorcerer (in denial as to his accomplice's demonic nature) in New York City specializing in helping murderers commit the perfect crime. He also has to stand security; [[You Have Failed Me...|if the murder falls through, it's off to Hell he goes]]. At the time the story starts, he's already had one close call. {{spoiler|Naturally, the next job is a textbook case of [[Epic Fail]].}}
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings|The Two Towers]]'', Faramir remarks about a fallen foe (a member of an army marching in support of the Dark Lord), "His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he comes from, and if he really was evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home, and would he not rather have stayed there... in peace?" (This rumination was cut from the theater version because it was such a long movie.)
* ''[[In Death]]'': Sylvester Yost from ''Betrayal In Death'' is very much this. He kills people because he's paid to, and he looks at what he does as a job in which he puts a number of years into it, and then he can retire and live in what he considers relative peace. Don't believe for a minute that he's a great guy, however. On the job, he rapes his target and strangles him or her with silver wire. He is [[The Sociopath]] and a [[Complete Monster]] who needs to be stopped.
* In ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', the cops towards the end of the book are "a couple of intelligent caring guys that you'd probably quite like if you met us socially!"
* [http://www.bartleby.com/148/3.html An Irish Airman foresees his death] by Yates can be both this trope and [[Punch Clock Hero]], depending on whether you're an Irish airman or an adversary of an Irish airman. It has this as the third and fourth lines:
{{quote|
Those that I guard I do not love. }}
* [[Tales of Kolmar]] has the villain hire mercenaries to go after someone. She is defended by an ex-mercenary who sees through their attempts to get casually close and warns them that they can leave now and it'll be fine, but if they go after her they're all dead, and urges the youngest one to leave the profession. The mercenaries do go after their target and are repelled, losing several of their own. After that, shaken, the youngest one decides that he's had enough and quits, and all the older mercs are actually pleased for him, but they won't quit a contract. {{spoiler|All of them get killed.}}
▲== Live Action TV ==
* On ''[[Doctor Who]]'', most employees of the Torchwood Institute tend to be Punch Clock Villains; however, over in ''[[Torchwood]]'', they're the main characters. They're usually different members, though.
** Well, Captain Jack explains that he rebuilt and changed Torchwood after {{spoiler|they got destroyed in the Cybermen invasion.}}
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* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' tends to leave the audience feeling more than a little sympathetic to the deputies working under [[The Dragon|Sheriff Rosco]] and [[Big Bad|Boss Hogg]]. Most of the sympathy fell on Enos Strate, who was genuinely sympathetic and actually had a crush on Daisy Duke. While his replacement Cletus Hogg wasn't as much an [[Anti-Villain]], he generally pointed out that it's nothing personal; he just wants to keep his job and not be a shame to the Hogg name.
* ''[[Prison Break]]'' is full of punch clock villains. The prison guards like Warden Pope were punch clock villains-Good guys who even had the respect of the audience and the protagonists but were simply in the way of a bigger cause (freeing an innocent man from prison) so they had to be taken down. Same with Paul Kellerman. He was a humongous threat to the protagonists but he was depicted as disinterested in the people he was trying to kill and a man dealing with heavy pressures from his employers. These punch clock villains were contrasted with characters who became emotionally invested in the destruction of the protagonists like Brad Bellick.
* Played with on ''[[Angel]]'', when the title character meets a vicious-looking demonic prison guard he has to defeat. The demon reveals his name is Skip and he commutes to work. Skip is sympathetic to Angel's situation, but is obligated to fight Angel anyway; when he is defeated (Skip later claims he took a dive) Angel makes sure he's not badly hurt before knocking him unconscious.
** Skip later turns out to play a larger role in the show. First he {{spoiler|helps Cordelia become part demon to cope with her visions.}} Later on, it was revealed that he did this because he was {{spoiler|working for the goddess Jasmine, who kills Cordelia and tries to take over the world. This makes him less of a Punch Clock Villain and more of [[The Mole]].}}
** When the cast takes over Wolfram and Hart they find that a lot of the people there will just go with the flow. Work to bring about apocalypse, work to help people, whatever, what's my bonus package look like? Lorne reads everyone to screen out the truly nasty people, and they get along okay. That said, there were a few goofs. {{spoiler|Eve and Sirk}} both turned out to be plotting with {{spoiler|Lindsey}} to kill Angel. One of their doctors was part of an extreme gourmet food network, and had [[Wolf Man|Nina]] kidnapped to be eaten alive. And {{spoiler|Knox}} secretly
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' featured a sequence in its fourth season where the main character, John Sheridan, was tortured for weeks on end by a banal inquisitor attempting to gain a signed confession out of him in exchange for his freedom. The inquisitor makes a big deal about never telling a lie, neglecting to mention the truths he conveniently omits, such as offering Sheridan half a sandwich in exchange for some small act of cooperation and not mentioning the fact that the poison within it will give him a night of horrible illness. Adding to the banality of the inquisitor's evil, near the end of the program, when the inquisitor has completely failed to get what he wants from Sheridan, he is simply replaced with another, who begins having the same conversation the first inquisitor began with.
** Sebastian {{spoiler|AKA [[Jack the Ripper]]}}, from the episode "Comes the Inquisitor", arguably also counts. Sure, he tortured Delenn and Sheridan during his testing of the two, but once they passed the test that was the end of his hostility towards them.
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** Daphne Millbrook from Volume 3 is another example, an [[Affably Evil]] speedster that is reasonably personable around Hiro and Ando, despite pursuing the same prize.
* ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]'': In the second season episode "The Arabian Affair", we actually see a THRUSH minion in their New York satrap carrying a lunch pail and punching a time clock as he leaves the office. As well, throughout the series the viewer sees numerous uniformed THRUSH forces (usually guarding headquarters and other important facilities), with the implication that these personnel are at least drawing a steady paycheck, if not actually punching a time clock.
* On ''[[24]]'' you have the [[Well-Intentioned Extremist
* Though in most ways the opposite of this trope, Max of ''[[Dark Angel]]'' goes in that direction in her pre-hero career. When confronted with the supposed immorality of her burglary, she replies indignantly: "I steal things in order to sell them for money. It's called commerce."
* ''[[The X-Files]]''. Morris Fletcher in "Dreamland".
{{quote|
* Subverted in ''[[Firefly]]'' when Jubal Early claims to only hurt people because it's part of the job, River replies that it's why he took the job. Eventually he concedes.
* Played almost literally in ''[[F Troop]]''. The Hekawi Indians have no time to terrorize the settlers when they're busy making souvenirs for tourists and distilling whisky for the town saloon.
* "Mike" from ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' is a professional hitman, as well as a multitude of other jobs that generically make life easier for criminals. Although he confesses to enjoying his job, he is also shown to be somewhat of a clear-headed softie, and a caring family man.
* The Romulan Commander from the ''[[Star Trek:
{{quote|
* This was how the Klingons waged their civil war in ''[[Star Trek: The
* Most of the Germans from ''[['Allo 'Allo!
* The "Mads" from ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''. While evil and plotting to take over the world with bad movies, they could also make it clear on occasion that there were really no hard feelings. Dr. Forrester would cheerfully swap invention ideas with Joel, Pearl would invite Mike over for a beer and a chat, and their various subordinates were all basically [[Minion with an F In Evil|too incompetent]] to be really malicious.
** This may be a better example of [[Go-Karting with Bowser]]; nobody was paying the Mads to be evil (with the possible exception of Frank). That was just how they rolled.
* Several villains of this caliber show up on ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', most of whom are actually demons and monsters whose entire existence hinges around doing evil. Most prominent is a demon in Sin City who is [[Locked in a Room|stuck in a caved-in basement with Dean]]. She defends her role in bringing evil to city, claiming that she's just doing her job and most of the [[Humans Are
* Most of the characters good or bad in [[Covert Affairs]] are pretty much doing their job as police or intelligence officers. While many of Annie's opponents are ruthless and treacherous as might be expected for a spy, their objective tends to be what their nation or political faction says it is.
**Many of Annie's opponents are criminals, or terrorists, or rogue agents, or traitors. These at least ''choose'' to be villainous.
*Zig-Zagged in ''[[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance|Winds of War/War and Remembrance]]''. Some Nazis would qualify as this; for instance the commandant of Auschwitz is a rather creepily loving family man, is not fond of his job and gives the feeling that he is [[Not So Different]] from many a Chateau general, except that he at least sees that his victims are children instead of soldiers. In any event his attitude is more that [[A Million Is a Statistic]]. On the other hand a lot of Nazis act like school bullies or prison thugs except pushing the extravagance of their evil far beyond the normal tyranny of life up to the [[Up to Eleven|Nth degree.]] These do things like beating or humiliating old men for no reason, threatening to kill a mother's baby in front of her, taking photos of corpses after shooting them, or on one occasion urinating on slaves while they work. No punch clocking for this crowd: they work overtime at evil.
== Music ==
* Finnish songwriter and artist Juice Leskinen has depicted this phenomenon chillingly in his song ''Osapäivänatsi'' (Part-Time Nazi), where a father takes off his uniform and jackboots after a hard working day, kisses his wife and plays with his children. He demonstrates how this kind of villains usually are the most dangerous as they are fully able to compartmentalize their ethics and their actions in two neat separate boxes.
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* Spoofed in a ''[[The Far Side]]'' comic, where a series of woodland creatures are shown lining up at a pair of punch clocks, labeled "Predators" and "Prey" respectively.
==
* Examples from [[Gilbert
** The pirates from ''[[The Pirates of Penzance]]'' (who are compassionate {{spoiler|noblemen}} who view piracy as an honest trade [[Inherent in the System|in comparison with the contrivances of proper society]]). ''Pirates'' also references the trope in "When a felon's not engaged in his employment" (A policeman's lot is not a happy one).
** John Wellington Wells from ''[[The Sorcerer]]'' (a respectable [[Victorian Britain|Victorian businessman]] who makes his living practicing "all forms of necromancy").
** The Lord Chancellor from ''[[Iolanthe]]'' (who prides himself on [[Lawful Neutral|never having let his good heart interfere with the rulings he makes as a judge]]).
** All the Murgatroyds from ''[[Ruddigore]]'', but Sir Despard in particular.
* Also arguably James Wilson in ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]'' {{spoiler|until his [[Heel Face Turn]] at the final vote.}}
** The other antagonists in the play (John Dickinson and Edward Rutledge) are all established as being fundamentally good men with different ideas as to what is best for America. The only thing about them that's really villainous is that Rutledge is protecting
== Video Games ==
* Zevran, of ''[[
** The Warden, if you played as a Dwarf Commoner. Depending on ow you play your character, they may not like what they're doing, but it's the only thing that will let them buy food for their family.
* Though not indicated in-game, the Lekgolo (aka Hunters) of ''[[Halo]]'' are this. They're starfish aliens who don't really give a crap about the affairs of humanoid aliens, and only joined up with the Covenant because it meant that they would have greater access to space travel and because if they didn't, the covenant would've [[Kill Sat]] them to oblivion. They also fight mainly with [[Battle Couple|battle couples]], making killing them all the more awkward.
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** More notably, there are two pairs of Punch Clock Villains who appear at several points in throughout. The first pair is Biggs and Wedge, who are almost entirely for comedic purposes, despite being fought twice. Both times they are fought, they are minor fights, and they are later seen to have retired from the Galbadian army due to repeatedly being beaten by Squall and co.
** The other pair is Fujin and Raijin, who take on a more serious role, taking control of Balamb Town at one point. They are, however, {{spoiler|later shown to go against the villain at the time, Seifer, and try convincing him to stop what he's doing.}} They are not entirely serious, with Raijin frequently making errors, prompting Fujin to kick him in the shins.
* The members of LeBlanc's Syndicate in ''[[Final Fantasy X
** Considering that one of them {{spoiler|is a soldier who supposedly died during the Mi'hen Mission two years ago}}, he's right.
* The majority of bosses in the ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series that belong to an enemy army, but have nothing to do with the main plot, are straightforward Punch Clock
* The guards in the ''[[Thief]]'' game series: they can often can be overheard [[Enemy Chatter|casually talking with each other]], sometimes dropping important clues along the way.
* The Special Forces and Vigoorian Military in the [[Updated Rerelease]] of ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]''. At least, it is implied, but since we never get to see things from their perspective the effect is dulled somewhat.
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* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has several enemies who you can have conversations with, where they indicate that they're just doing their jobs trying to stop you. In one jarring instance, you can encounter a mercenary commander whose exhausted, wounded, and undersupplied men have spent the last several days fighting for their survival and protecting a large number of civilians from [[Bee People]]. After helping him fight off another attack, and then proceeding to clear out the infestation, you come back, only to find he's received new orders: to kill ''you.'' He even says in a very tired, sad voice, that he's very sorry, but he's got his orders, right before the shooting starts. Fortunately, it is possible to go another route.
** At one point in ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'', after fighting through a bunch of Eclipse mercs, you encounter a young Asari merc hiding in a room. She pleads for Shepard not to hurt her, claims she has no quarrel with him/her, and thought her job would be "fighting bad guys", not killing innocent people for whatever psycho who hires the team. The Paragon option is, of course, to let her go. {{spoiler|Subverted when you later find a datapad with a log entry by said merc where she sadistically gloats over having brutally murdered a volus merchant. If you had let her go, the only thing you can do is give the evidence over to the police.}}
*** The game actually is fair about it though: if you paid close attention to the mission briefing, you would be able to spot the blatant visual clue in the cutscene that tells you what's really going on. {{spoiler|She's wearing the Eclipse uniform. You're told earlier that wearing Eclipse colors requires first passing the gang initiation of committing a cold-blooded murder; 'prospects' who are simply aspiring to be members but have yet to prove themselves aren't allowed to wear flags. This mirrors real-world street gang practices.}}
* Most Reapers from ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' aren't ''too'' sadistic for their job. As a general rule, the Game Masters are usually a lot worse than the Support and Harriers. [[Those Two Bad Guys|Kariya and Uzuki]] in particular stand out.
* Not all Imperial soldiers of ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' are [[Magnificent Bastard
* While he is a definite [[Badass]], the Sniper from ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' seems to think of himself this way. "Sniping's a good job, mate! It's challenging work, out of doors. I can guarantee you'll never go hungry...."
** The Engineer, meanwhile, is mostly concerned with "solving practical problems" and self-defence.
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* Crimson Viper in ''[[Street Fighter IV]]'' makes it clear that beating the crap out of the world's top fighters in order to assassinate Seth is just business, and she's indicated to be a perfectly friendly person outside the ring who enjoys spending time with her daughter.
* In ''[[Mirror's Edge]]'', {{spoiler|Celleste}} signed up as an assassin for the corrupt mayor because it's a comparatively safe job that puts bread on the table, and also has the great advantage that the police forces are now on your side, instead of trying to shoot you on sight. As a wonderful example of an actual Punchclock Villain, she still hangs out with her friends after work, and drops hints that it really would be better for them to stop antagonizing the oppressive government and starting a more socially accepted type of life.
* ''Every'' character in ''[[Iji]]'', even {{spoiler|General Tor, the [[Final Boss]] and supposed [[Big Bad]]}}. In fact, the only ones who ''are'' evil are the [[General Ripper]] leading the Tasen, [[Blood Knight]] Iosa, and the
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'':
** Half of the members of Organization XIII are portrayed this way in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
** Also, Yuna, Rikku, and Paine, the ''heroines'' of ''[[
* Joshua from ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones'' punches out after losing a coin toss.
** From a pretty girl, mind you.
** A number of minor bosses from the series in general will fulfill this trope.
* An overheard conversation in ''[[Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception]]'' shows that at least one Leasath shipman would rather be out fishing than watching the surrounding skies for incoming hostiles. Also subverted in the same game, where someone responding to said shipman nonchalantly tells him that he'll have all the time needed to go fish once Aurelia's been defeated. Several other snippets also show that some Leasath grunts genuinely buy into their commanding officer's desire to see the destruction and downfall of Aurelia.
** ''[[Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies]]'' has the Erusean 'Yellow' squadron, who are just soldiers and not really villainous for the sake of it. They even befriend the San Salvacion people and abhor the Erusean tactics of posting AA guns on hospitals in occupied cities. Thirteen even ''praises'' the "skilled enemy pilot" who is winning battles all along the way.
** ''[[Ace Combat Zero:
* Lucifon of ''[[Princess Maker]] 2'' seems to be very much this. When he is defeated in a duel by the father of the game, he points out that it was the God's will that he attack the corrupted land, a point the father can't argue with. He does seem to treat his role more as a job to be done than a chance to act as your typical scheming villain, though he takes a great deal of pride if he succeeds in corrupting your daughter enough to make her become the next princess of darkness either by marriage or [[You Kill It, You Bought It]]. He and most of the demons are generally [[Affably Evil]].
* At one point in ''[[Deus Ex]]'', the player comes across an NSF platoon that is guarding an underground supply route. When the player reaches the platoon commander, he {{spoiler|surrenders and gives up without a fight}} because "he's just a reservist". He explains that, under scary looking body armour, he's just an accountant, and isn't really big on dying just to protect the supply route.
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** And Raizou Imawano, the president ''himself'', is one of these despite looking [[Obviously Evil]], as ''he's'' being brainwashed into doing all of this by his nephew and student body president Hyo Imawano.
*** And even ''Hyo'' is being brainwashed by the spirit of his dead father, Mugen Imawano.
* Sometimes, ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'' uses this. Most guards are [[Jerkass
* Rocket grunts from ''[[Pokémon]]'' are these. Galactic grunts can also fall under this category.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Acid]] 2'', the security chief of SaintLogic, Vince, is a terrifying figure in full-plate armour with glowing blue eyes...who is disturbingly nice due to being this, not going out of his way to hinder Snake any further than his job requires, talking to him in a chatty and informal manner, and even siding with him occasionally when he feels his job is asking him to go too far. Because of this, he's a soft target for [[Psycho for Hire|Venus]], who is far less nice a person than he is.
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** The legendary Johnny from Metal Gear Solids 1, 2, and Grandfather Johnny. Also doubles as a [[Minion with an F In Evil]].
* Cynthia Charleston from ''In The 1st Degree'' could qualify as this (as well as being an [[Amoral Attorney]]). She is a defense attorney who is defending a man charged with first degree murder and grand theft. However, since the game does not show her or her personality when she is off-duty...
* In ''[[Jak II
* In ''[[
* Plenty of them in ''[[Tekken]]'' as not everyone is that much concerned with the Devil Gene business. The Williams sisters (Nina and Anna) takes any job and wouldn't expand it to personal lives, their aim is just to settle their sister rivalries. Eddy Gordo is only in Jin's army to get the cure for his sickly master. Bruce Irvin is a good friend of Kazuya Mishima and usually serves him well, but outside his servitude, he's a [[Friend to All Children]] and help them out when he can.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Narbonic]]'' centers around Dave Davenport and his employer, the [[Mad Scientist]] Dr. Helen Narbon. Dave's fully aware of what Helen does for a living and will occasionally note how odd it is that none of it fazes him. Maybe if she succeeded more often...
* A dominant theme of the
* Kroenen, and, to a lesser extend, most of the bad guys in ''[[Abe Kroenen]]''. However, with the {{spoiler|death of Rasputin}}, most of his minions seem to be rather depressed not to have someone boss them around.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100722013444/http://www.hellboundcomic.com/Comic/Hellcomic.php?date=2007-01-25 this strip] of ''[[Hellbound]]'', though, strictly speaking, they're heroic antagonists to the villainous protagonists.
* After ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' (temporarily) destroy Xykon, one of his remaining minions announces that, since nobody is paying them to fight anymore, they're surrendering. Unfortunately, he announces this to [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Belkar]], who, undaunted, proceeds to wholesale slaughter the "pretty little chunks of XP".
** Again, in ''The Order of the Stick'', comics 30-32 take place in the secret Break Room of Xykon's Lair, where they encounter a "squid-thingy" before the comic is interrupted by two Lawyers sent to prosecute the comic for violation of the Open Gaming License.
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* Most of the Combine in ''[[Concerned]]'', as well as their few human employees (including Gordon Frohman himself).
* In ''[[Terinu]]'', the [[Big Bad]]'s chosen leader for his genetically created group of minions is a happy family man who's concerned for his pregnant wife, who just happens to leads invasions of innocent worlds for his master.
* Most Heteri-Corp [[Mook
* Fuchsia, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]-colored devil girl of ''[[Sinfest]]'',
** The idea is also summarized neatly [
* Subverted in ''[[Scary Go Round]]'', where "evil intern" Gibbous Moon returns to romance [[Marty Stu|Ryan]], and {{spoiler|turns out to be the field general for a crew of pirates, disguised as Blackbeard's ghost.}}
* The major thematic element of ''[[Chopping Block]]''. While [[Serial Killer|Butch]] certainly ''enjoys'' what he [[Ax Crazy|does]], he views it very much as a job, trying to make quotas, keeping a professional standard, and occasionally talking shop with other killers (though he detests that).
* Abraham from ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' seems to be this. He takes no pleasure in what he does, and it's heavily implied that if it wasn't for his oath, he wouldn't be antagonizing the cast, but he lacks the openly sympathetic aspect that would make him an [[Anti-Villain]].
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101229201450/http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/?p=938 The 200th comic] of ''[[Brawl in the Family]]'' uses this. "These minions clock in from 9 till 5 to provide for their wives..."
* [http://www.pholph.com/whole_arc_viewer.php?id=5&sid=563 This Arc] of ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'' deals with the ethical dilemmas of finding yourself an unwilling punch clock villain by {{spoiler|discovering half way through your employment that your boss is a twisted paedophile, and being unable to quit or tell anyone because he's also weeks from finding a cure to your wife's terminal cancer.}}
* Gen. William Howe in ''[[The Dreamer]]''. He really doesn't want to fight against the very people he fought with in the French And Indian War, but he has no choice but to follow orders.
* Davan in ''[[Something
{{quote|
[[Jerkass|"Pretty well. I mean, fuck it, why should I care? It's not like they're my kids."]] }}
* According to his [[Villain Song]], Skipper Plumbthroat, of ''[[Homestuck]]''{{'}}s [[Show Within a Show]] ''Squiddles!'', apparently hunts the eponymous Squiddles in order to pay off his debts.
* In ''[[Sidekick Girl]]'', Coldfire is a henchman who only henches because his visa is tied to the Henchman Agency, and he has a bounty on his head back in his home country. He often willingly helps the heroes in secret.
* In ''[[Nintendo Acres]]'', villains like Bowser, Ganon, and Dr. Eggman, like almost everyone else, are simply actors who work in video games, and are actually quite nice people.
* In ''[[Voodoo Walrus]]'', Shmeerm seems to exhibit qualities of this. If he doesn't have express orders to pummel, eviscerate, and destroy people, places, and things, he seems content to simply traumatize catgirls and talk about his relationship problems with a science badger over tea.
* Sentry of [http://ask-a-sentry.tumblr.com/ Ask-a-Sentry], a [[Tumblr-based]] ''[[Tron]]''
== Web Original ==
* The ''[[
* Members of the Hymn of One cult in ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' are, for the most part, just religious people who like to meditate, find their "inner song", and do charitable work. Unfortunately, the people in charge have other plans.
** Explored further in ''[[Kate Modern]]'', with the character of Steve Roberts. "I was just doing my job!", indeed.
* ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
** There's also Moist, who leads a "life of crime" as a henchmen, and spends his free time dating and hanging out with friends in rooms with pink wallpaper and an abundance of stuffed toys.
* ''[[Interviewing Leather]]'': The henchmen working for
* In the story "Boston Brawl 2" of the [[Whateley Universe]], the [[Big Bad]] brings his [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] and also four mercenaries in case the heroes show up. One mercenary, the Anti-Paladin, is appalled that - while they wait for the signal - a couple other of the mercenaries are sitting around playing a
** Ironically, the Anti-Paladin himself is just a professional. He's a bit of a [[Noble Demon]], though still evil. (He sacrifices kittens so he can enter holy ground. However, see his focus in "Angel in Father John's Basement".)
* Tex from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'':
{{quote|
'''Tex:''' I wouldn't say I'm mean; I just get hired to do mean things.
'''Tucker:''' Yeah, but you like it.
'''Tex:''' Well, I think it's important to enjoy what you do.
'''Tucker:''' So... let's say I hired you to kill Caboose. You would still do it, right? Even though you're supposed to be helping us?
'''Tex:''' Is this a hypothetical discussion, or should we start talking numbers?
'''Tucker:''' Yeah, I don't wanna talk about this anymore. }}
** Just Tex? The setting is one of [[Grey and Gray Morality]] - depending on which side's perspective you take, nearly anyone on the show could be considered this trope.
* The whole Silence Cult of ''[[Trinton Chronicles]]'' counts as this, after all they are only villains to the main characters half the time.
* Thanks to various laws and agreements, the vast majority of supervillains in the ''[[Patchwork Champions]]'' treat supervillainy as more of a sport than a villainous calling.
* [[Badass Preacher|Jesus]] in ''[[Madness Combat]]''... [[Alternative Character Interpretation|probably]]. [[Excuse Plot|He doesn't get any more characterization than anyone else]].
== Western Animation ==
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** Also, Sandman, who maintains his lack of a villainous nature from the comics. He's only in it for a "big score", not all the vindictive vendettas most of the other villains have (he often says how much he hates revenge), and generally tries not to hurt anyone (except Spiderman and the cops, of course) when on a job. This becomes even more clear in a recent episode, where he, while waiting for a contact, helps a kid get rid of some bullies, and, after accidentally setting an oil tanker on fire in a fight with Spiderman, helps save the crew, and almost kills himself containing the explosion.
* Many Fire Nation soldiers are portrayed this way in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. Although there are some that seem to enjoy being cruel, most are just normal people doing their jobs.
** As well as Ty Lee and Mai, who are only doing evil due to being intimidated into it by Azula (Ty Lee) or
** Certain episodes show that the Fire Nation Soldiers, by and large, don't even view themselves as ''Villains.'' The Fire Nation uses very liberal amounts of propaganda on the populace, and many are convinced that the war they're waging on the "lesser nations" are in their best interests.
* In ''[[Metalocalypse]]'', Dethklok's manager, Charles Foster Ofdensen, [[Badass Bookworm|is quiet and restrainedly affable]], but will kill or torture anyone threatening his "bread and butter". Given that Dethklok are unambiguously a force for evil in the world (though a popular one and [[Devil but No God|only one of a few]]), and he also doesn't care how many people are killed or maimed by Dethklok as long as there will be no untoward consequences for the band and his job, I think he qualifies as a villain.
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* Lemongrab of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' is a tyrannical ruler who sends everyone to the dungeon for a million years. When he doesn't have a considerable position of power, however, he's just your average, mentally unstable, run-of-the-mill jerk who's only a threat to himself. He only acquired that position of power because it was his duty- not because he wanted to. And we all saw how eager he was to be there...
* Mixmaster and Scrapper in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' worked for Megatron because he had the better oil, and because he didn't try to scare them off. They really had no vested interest in Megatron's cause, and were only really motivated to fight when Starscream [[Berserk Button|shot their oil]]. With their construction worker theme, it wouldn't be surprising if they ''used'' a punchclock.
** Furthermore, they started out as friends to Bulkhead, one of the Earth team Autobots, and in "Human Error, Part 2", {{spoiler|Scrapper joined up with Sari's group of Substitute Autobots to break Soundwave's brainwashing of the "first-string" Autobots}}.
*
** Like many cartoon series, it took some tweaking to arrive at the formula. In the first one, only the sheepdogs punch the time clock, a new shift continues pummeling the wolf. In the second, both the wolves and sheepdogs punch in and out, but at separate clocks - no interaction off work. By the third, the two would greet each other at the clock, and by the series' end, they even shared a house!
{{quote|
"Good morning, Ralph."}}
* Jack Spicer begins to cross into this territory during the second season premiere of ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', after a temporary alliance with the heroes comes to an end. When Omi pleads with him to not return to evil, Jack sighs and says that, though he's still going to fight them for control of the Shen Gong Wu, he promises they'll [[Go-Karting with Bowser|go out for ice cream sometimes]] when they're all off the clock, which cheers Omi up.
* Shriek in ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' started out like this: he tried to kill Bruce, but only because, otherwise, his [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] boss would fire him from his perfectly respectable career as a sound engineer. However, he was then caught wearing his [[Clothes Make the Superman|super suit]] at his workplace, meaning that he would unable to go back without being arrested, prompting him to embrace the moniker Shriek. Then, {{spoiler|a battle with Batman caused him to go deaf}}, so he embraced full-on, city-threatening supervillainy to get his revenge.
* Dr. Doofenshmirtz on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]].'' His [[Evil Plan|evil plans]] are basically a routine; he usually won't even ''start'' trying to use his newest invention until his arch-nemesis ([[Friendly Enemy|and best friend]]) [[Everything's Better with Platypi|Perry the Platypus]] shows up to foil him, and he seems to realize that he usually loses. He also has [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|a
** Not to mention that his plans usually involve creating potentially evil devices for silly, [[Evil Is Petty|petty]] reasons.
** And there's also Suzy, who's only mean to Candace whenever her brother's around (since she threatens her control over him), and is nice when she's "off the clock."
** Also Buford, who refers to himself as a bully, but spends free time with his usual "victims" if there's no major bullying to be done.
* The ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "Flash and Substance" has Captain Cold moaning about how crime isn't paying enough for him to make his mortgage payments.
* Strike breaking lowlife Scab on ''[[Minoriteam]]'' is really just trying to feed his kids with villainy. And the Black Coq works for the White Shadow because he has nowhere else to go after losing his family and restaurant.
* General Molotov on ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is pretty friendly whenever he's off-duty. This is especially notable since he works for [[Satan|Lucius]].
* A sketch on ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' featured Jason Voorhees eagerly awaiting [[Friday the 13th (film)|Friday the 13 th]], where he went on his normal killing spree. The following day, he is disappointed to go back to a normal routine.
* The Driller from the original ''[[ThunderCats (1985 series)|ThunderCats]]''. An android mercenary, he needed diamonds simply to survive. Because Mum-Rah had urns full of them in his [[Treasure Room]], Driller worked for him loyally.
* An episode of ''[[Cow and Chicken]]'' had Chicken trying to confront a bully on the weekends. The bully says he only bullies on the weekdays and spends the weekends helping the poor.
* From ''[[Gargoyles]]'', [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|Pack]] member Dingo is pretty clearly just there for the paycheck, and gets increasingly disgusted with his teammates as they slip further into [[Psycho for Hire]]-ness. Ultimately, he decides he's had enough and has a flat-out [[Heel Face Turn]].
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* In ''[[South Park]]'', [[Satan]] is portrayed in this fashion. He is also rather meek, insecure and [[Affably Evil]], certainly less evil than Cartman, and even chats pleasantly and enthusiastically with his victims (who appear to only be truly bad people) after torturing them.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Archer]]'' with this exchange:
{{quote|
'''Charles:''' Like big ol' Tangerines!
'''Ramon:''' Then why are you working for Castro? You know his stance on homosexuality!
'''Charles:''' Because, commie, I have something called a "mortgage." }}
** The villain of "Movie Star" also counts. She even briefly considers not carrying out her duty as a sleeper agent until she remembers that the Soviets said she'd get to direct...
== Real Life ==
* Most real-life sportspeople are Punch Clock Villains to their opponents and their opponents' fans: fully genial and good-natured off the field, but ruthlessly competitive on it.
** The same can't be said of most sports fans.
*** Many old (pre-1990s) Australian Rugby players lament that - due to various club rivalries and the growing trend of [[Contractual Purity]] within clubs - they can no longer go to the pub and share a pot with their mates (of either side) after the game.
** And about good sportsmanship not making good drama, see ''[[Eyeshield 21]]''. Many of the opposing teams are good, aspiring people that sometimes you can't help but root for, and their defeat often ends up as [[Tear Jerker]].
** It's especially prevalent when long-time teammates wind up getting separated due to trades. It's not uncommon to see former teammates and veterans chatting it up amicably between rounds of whatever
** Interestingly, there's an official rule in Major League [[Baseball]] that forbids players from fraternizing while on the field, enforcing this trope.
* Prior to [[World War
** During the French occupancy in WWII, it was not uncommon for off-duty German officers (many of whom served in the front lines in WWI) to exchange stories with retired French WWI soldiers.
** During the battle of Gettysburg, one stream saw both Union and Confederate soldiers drawing water from it and having conversations.
** There was also the 1914 [[w:Christmas truce|Christmas truce]] in WWI. It was famously remembered in Christmas song "Snoopy's Christmas" which saw the eponymous character (of ''[[Peanuts]]'' fame) have Christmas dinner with his rival, the Red Baron.
*** A bittersweet case of [[Truth in Television]]: When the Red Baron was shot down and killed, he was treated with the greatest respect and given a funeral with full military honors by the Australian unit credited with his death.
** War as a "gentleman's game" ended when technology improved to the point that enemies could massacre each other at a distance. If you can mow down your opponents in bunches, without ever getting close enough to see their faces, they become [[Faceless Mooks]], and chivalry goes right out the window.
*** This phenomenon is also common in discussions of Game Theory. In WWI, specifically, opposing military units would often face each other for long periods at a time, which allowed them to work out a crude sort of honor like "Don't shoot on Christmas"
*** In [[World War II]], it wasn't uncommon for resistance fighters who didn't want their occupiers to be there and units of occupying troops who didn't really want to be there either to adopt an informal policy of leaving each other alone as much as possible. The best example was Yugoslavia: before Italy's [[Heel Face Turn]], the Yugoslav resistance made a point of not deliberately antagonizing the Italian troops and instead focused on the Germans. For their part, the Italians made only half-hearted efforts to stamp out resistance units who, after all, were generally shooting at the Germans.
*** Rommel managed to maintain something of a "gentleman's game" approach, certainly, he refused to round up or execute the Jews in the areas he was posted.
* A somewhat less pleasant example would be the civilians working at the Nazi concentration camps. They were mostly ordinary people who lived ordinary
* Loads of Nazi soldiers up for war crimes said they were [[Just Following Orders]]. That got them...wait for it...NOWHERE!
** Considering that the
***In any case once an SS guard found out his duties he always had the somewhat more honorable option of volunteering for the Russian front and picking on victims who were shooting back at him.
** World War II was actually the beginning of the concept that "following orders" was not a justification for committing crimes against humanity.
** The [[wikipedia:Myth of the clean Wehrmacht|"Clean Wehrmacht" myth]] maintains that the regular German Armed Forces during WWII were merely serving the fatherland and not necessarily out of blind obedience to Hitler, instead pinning the blame on the Waffen-SS when it comes to any atrocities carried out including but not limited to [[The Holocaust]]; in actuality, there has been some extensively documented evidence to debunk the myth despite efforts by veterans groups to cover them up.
* The idea of ''"The Banality of Evil"'' by Hanna Arendt is a response to this, describing how people can regard the most terrible atrocities as "just a job" that they justify by the fact that they are [[Just Following Orders]].
* [[Terry Pratchett]] is actually right: groups of bureaucrats have done more evil than any lunatic or [[Complete Monster]]
** Except that Pratchett is completely wrong, as your own examples demonstrate: the Holocaust, Stalin's Great Terror, Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and Saddam Hussein's massacres were all driven by psychopathic megalomaniacs at the very top of the power structure in each case (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Hussein, respectively).
* In [[wikipedia:Stanford prison experiment|The Stanford Prison Experiment]], a well-known psychological study, psychologist Philip Zimbardo asked participants to stay in a prison-like environment, role-playing guards and prisoners for several weeks. The experiment was aborted when the results proved [[Humans Are
** What makes it even more disturbing is that Zimbardo is also a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKW_MzREPp4 genial professor] who makes educational videos about psychology, which puts the banality of evil in sharp relief. It's difficult to imagine that man acting the way he admits he did.
* And there's also [[wikipedia:Milgram experiment|The Milgram Experiment]], which shows that the majority of ordinary people will electrocute another person to death if they receive some mild encouragement from an authority figure.
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*** There have also been suggestions that the reason so many people continued with it was because they'd guessed that the shocks weren't real. As a result, a follow-up study was done [[wikipedia:Milgram experiment#Other variations|using a live puppy actually receiving shocks]] as the victim. 20 out of 26 participants were still compliant, even though several participants openly wept.
** Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience":
{{quote|
** Which brings to mind the famous Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
** Reportedly, there was a recent{{when}} experiment where this took the form of a game show...with even more disturbing results.
* [[wikipedia:Wernher von Braun|Wernher von Braun]] designed the V-2 rocket, [[For Science!]]!
** Operation Paper Clip as a whole combines this with [[Heel Face Turn]].
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* While the media and history textbooks have created a classic image of the old American Slave Owner as being pretty much a Nazi with a Southern accent; the image of the typical Southern slaveholder being a sadistic white aristocrat sittin' on the verandah sippin' mint juleps is not quite accurate. The majority of people buying and selling slaves really bore no ill will towards anyone, white or black. According to many reliable sources, several slave owners went out of their way to treat their slaves with genuine care and respect and many states had laws against their intentional mistreatment. So....it becomes understandable that the concept of treating living human beings like property and tearing families apart by selling off a man's wife and children like accessories at a yard sale could become viewed as 'benign', rather than as a abomination.
** In ''[[The Boondocks]]'' episode about the main characters' ancestor, the third (and the true) version of the story, treated the slave master as this.
** 1860 census records show that, while 25% of white Southerners owned slaves, less than 1% owned more than fifty of them. Also, South Carolina's third largest slaveholder at the time of the War was William Ellison, a black freedman. Much like the Holocaust, (and a great number of evils), it simply became such an accepted part of life that folks started missing the "evil" part, even those suffering it.
*** While it is generally a given that slavery is a disgrace to all humanity '''now''', it's important to remember that in many civilizations, slavery had its origins as a ''humane'' solution. Some thought it was doing the conquered and/or captured a favor to take them slaves as opposed to slaughtering them all.
**** Much like the example of William Ellison above, throughout history many slaves owned slaves themselves and almost all freedmen did, as was the case in Ancient Rome. Also, Roman slaves occupied quite prestigious positions in society as well. So when slavery devolved into casual rape or horrific punishments of extremely minor misdeeds, it was easy to overlook it on account of how "''well''" it seemed to work out otherwise.
**** However, slavery as a permanent, multigenerational state as practiced in the Antebellum American South is quite at odds with the way it was implemented in most cultures prior. In general, older models of slavery were closer to an extreme form of indenture, with slaves theoretically (and often actually) capable of earning or buying their freedom, and the children of slaves were almost never ''automatically'' slaves themselves. The American South's utter dependence upon slave labor just to keep its economy afloat ''required'' a permanent and self-renewing slave class quite unlike any seen in history before.
* The average soldier or civilian employee in any dictatorship. For most part, they're just ordinary people wanting to do ordinary jobs, but doing so allow the regime to keep on going.
** In a weird sort of way these can be both punch clock villains and punch clock heroes. You will be hard pressed to find a regime that does not provide ''some'' useful public service if only to make sure there are healthy taxpayers to extort money from. On the Eastern Front in [[World War 2]] curiously the Red Army was to some degree protecting Russian civilians from the Wehrmacht in 1941 and in 1945 the Wehrmacht was [[Fridge Logic|protecting German civilians]] from the vengeance of the Red Army.
** Special mention should go to the average North Korean soldier, not the commandos, who don't even get a good paycheck. During the winter, on the Chinese border, these guards are ordered to shoot or arrest anybody who has wandered along the iced rivers and into/out of the North. They are said to be quite polite towards the Chinese who live along the border and routinely ask them for food, cigarettes, and even coal, pretty much anything to help them survive sentry duty in the winter.
* At a ''far'' less sinister level than all of these, but still worthy of mention: repo men (and women). Sure, they don't [[Repo! The Genetic Opera|take anyone's organs]], but most people still don't like their possessions being taken without their permission.
** Kinda hard to consider them as villains when the [[Designated Hero|hero]] is the one who put themselves in debt.
*** Not that those having stuff repossessed are always the pinnacle of good nature and intellect either. While many fall on hard times, others often enter into loan or lease agreements and then think that once they have possession of, say, a car, it's theirs for life. This is, of course, contrary to [[Captain Obvious|reality]].
* Pretty much ''everybody'' who works in a position of authority (prison guard, cop, judge, politician, lawyer, bureaucrat, teacher, soldier, corporate officer, business investor, security guard, etc, etc, etc.)...think that their job is good for the world, or at least a perfectly honest way to make a living. Yet about half of the time, the verdict of history is going to be that they were working for the wrong side.
* Anarchist John Zerzan famously and controversially referred to this sort of person as a "[[wikipedia:Little Eichmanns|Little Eichmann]]."
** Former University of Colorado professor [[Jerkass|Ward Churchill]] used the phrase [[Kick the Dog|to refer to the victims of the 9/11 attacks]]. [[Laser-Guided Karma|It got his smug ass fired]] ''and'' it netted him a [[Comically Small Bribe|$1 award]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|for damages]] when he tried to sue the school.
* Whichever soldiers your side is fighting in a war are generally these, especially if there's a draft. However, [[General Ripper|there]] [[Sociopathic Soldier|are]] [[Colonel Kilgore|certainly]] [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|some]] [[Psycho for Hire|exceptions]].
* The IRS (the Internal Revenue Service). A.K.A. the taxmen.
* Hermann Göring, according to journalist and author Guido Knopp and others. He apparently didn't mind his younger brother Albert protecting Jews, as long as he didn't make any mess Hermann couldn't get him out of.
* Mercenaries and most hired guns in general. It's just a paycheck, and it's
* Suicide Bombers curiously. They often do their job simply for a paycheck for their family.
* In [[World War II]] there were actually punch clock villain [[Up to Eleven|states.]] Only a [[Those Wacky Nazis|few regimes]] can be said to have woken up and decided, "I want to be evil, it's my lifelong dream". Almost everyone else in the entire world basically pursued [[Realpolitik|the policy]] that would [[Survival Horror|keep it alive]] and maybe [[Cycle of Revenge|get back at a neighbor for something,]] or [[Plunder|pickpocket a bit of territory,]] or whatever. Once in awhile a government also considered [[Honor Before Reason|honor]] but usually that was when their geography and resources made that an option. The result is that a lot of times how we look on a state retrospectively has more to do with their situation at the time then how evil or good it's leadership was.
**For instance deciding whether Hitler or Stalin was more evil is rather eccentric and deciding who was a greater threat to the world was a nice judgement call. However the Finn's were pretty sure who ''Finland'' had the biggest beef with. Likewise Hungary and Romania took the German side because they didn't have much love for the Russians to begin with, but aside from that the Germans could take over their countries in a few days. On the other hand the Poles were on the Allied side because the Germans had kind of, you know ''invaded'' them(so did the Russians but one enemy at a time is enough).
* The underground gunsmiths from the town of Danao in Cebu, Philippines know all too well that their home-made M1911 pistols would end up in the hands of drug dealers duking each other out in turf wars and deals gone wrong, but they otherwise had no other choice but to continue what they do to feed their family. They did however appeal to then-president Rodrigo Duterte to help legitimise their firearms industry especially as the town's mayor just happened to be one of Duterte's cousins.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Hired Guns]]
[[Category:Mooks]]
[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]
[[Category:Villains]]
▲[[Category:Punch Clock Villain]]
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