Smug Snake/Literature: Difference between revisions

* Imogen Herondale from ''[[The Mortal Instruments]]''. A [[Fantastic Racism|racist]] [[Evil Chancellor]] and [[Manipulative Bitch]] with a pathological hatred of children. She thinks she's playing everyone throughout the book but her grand plan fails spectacularly and [[Big Bad]] Valentine Morgenstern viciously humiliates her, resulting in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when she breaks down. Unusually for this trope, she is revealed to have a sympathetic side and ultimately redeems herself by [[Redemption Equals Death|sacrificing her life to save Jace]].

* Queen Cersei Lannister in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Overestimation of her own cleverness is one of her main character traits. There's a prophecy that everything that could possibly go wrong in her life will, so her ruthless methods are understandable, yet her incompetent attempts at manipulation and power-grabbing alienate almost every one of her allies and could well lead her to the terrible fate predicted in the prophecy.

** Lord Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish ''seems'' like a Smug Snake to most of the other characters, {{spoiler|but this is a smokescreen to hide what is actually a subtle [[Magnificent Bastard]], who has apparently single-handedly organized the War of Five Kings as well as the assassination of two kings, while simultaneously organizing the rise of a new queen... his protegee Sansa Stark.}}

*** The trope is also subverted {{spoiler|by the eunuch Varys, who wears his [[Sissy Villain]] persona as a mask to operate behind the collective back of the [[Deadly Decadent Court]].}}

** In every appearance of Viserys, the book contrasts his attitude ("You don't want to wake the dragon, ''do you?''") with the reality: he's a spineless, pathetic little man who bullies his sister Daenerys because there's nobody else even close to being weak enough to let him get away with it. {{spoiler|When Dany develops enough strength to resist him, Viserys mentally collapses and gets himself killed within a few pages.}}

** Theon Greyjoy could be the poster boy for this trope. {{spoiler|At least until ''A Dance with Dragons'', where Ramsay Bolton has tortured him into insanity - he's a thoroughly broken shell whose mind slides between his current identity as 'Reek', Ramsay's completely subservient and terrified slave, and his former identity, Theon, who bears little to no resemblance to his former self.}}

* In the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' novels, Quarath, the [[Evil Chancellor]] to the leader of the [[Corrupt Church]] fits this model. His own ambitions for power and wealth are compared to the epic confrontation between ''actual'' [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent Bastards]] Raistlin and Fistandantilus of which Quarath is completely unaware. Ended up {{spoiler|being squashed by a pillar as his temple collapsed}} when his master pisses off the gods that Quarath had stopped believing in by this point.

** In the later War of Souls trilogy we get Morham Targonee, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Lord of the Night]], who despite his impressively evil sounding title is a scheming accountant who happened to be in the right place at the right time to seize power. When the local [[Dark Messiah]] shows up and steals his job, she punishes him in what is perhaps the worst way a Smug Snake can experience- by forcing him to realize his own cosmic insignificance before killing him.