Harmless Villain: Difference between revisions

* While ''[[Touhou]]'' [[Good All Along|"villains"]] aren't exactly the ambitious sort, and their plots, if any, are silly at best (with the notable exceptions of [[Jerkass|Tenshi]] and [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|Utsuho]]), they are legitimately powerful and highly menacing when they want to be. The [[Terrible Trio|Three Mischievous Fairies]], however, don't seem to realise that they are dead last in the hierarchy of Gensoukyou, with even the [[Puny Humans|mostly powerless humans]] dismissing them, and their [[Poke the Poodle|laughably harmless schemes]] fail far more often than they succeed.

* {{spoiler|Wheatley}} in ''[[Portal 2]]'', when {{spoiler|he becomes evil after being plugged into the mainframe of Aperture Science.}} He does pose a genuine and intentional threat...briefly, twice. The rest of the time he's dangerous not from menace but sheer idiocy, his complete incompetence {{spoiler|at controlling Aperture Science threatening to destroy the facility in a nuclear meltdown}}.

* Duc de Puce, a.k.a. "[[Fail O'Suckyname|The Rat]]", from the ''[[Stronghold]]'' series. [[Too Dumb to Live]], [[General Failure]], [[Minion with an F In Evil]], [[Small Name, Big Ego]]. He's more of [[Narm|an entertainer]] than a real antagonist.

* The [[Fallout: New Vegas]] DLC ''Old World Blues'' has The Toaster, an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] obsessed with burning the world. He is limited in his evil quest by being a talking toaster (and that alas, unbeknownst to him, [[After the End|the world has already burned]]. He gets very upset when you point this out). About the worst he can do, should you not suffer an attack of stupid and [[Too Dumb to Live|stick your hand into his bread slot]], is ''threaten'' to set you on fire.

** Completely undone in his second appearance, though. When he first shows up again, he spends a moment thinking about what evil plots he could do. Aorist jokingly suggests that he blight his weeds again, so Demon-Jame ''rips him in half.''

* The Minion Master from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' isn't really interested in doing anything bad; he tends to view making people his minions as a way of helping them escape their old lives, more than anything else. And he doesn't even ''get'' any minions until Torg and Co. join him, at which point, they promptly start using his resources to ''battle'' evil, placating their "Master" by explaining that, as the big picture guy, he doesn't need to know the specifics, or anything at all, about what his minions are actually doing.

 

 

** Aladdin also occasionally had to deal with an inept thief named Amin Damoola (nicknamed 'Butterfingers'). The only time Butterfingers was a serious threat was once, when was using magical artifacts supplied by Mozenrath, who had essentially replaced Jafar as Aladdin's main nemesis.

* Doctor Light in ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' seems more like the team's punching bag than their enemy.

** He doesn't come across as all that harmless so long as Raven isn't around; in his introduction, he's actually winning against the Titans and usually puts up a pretty good fight until Raven talks to him and he falls apart. If she wasn't around, he'd be anything but harmless.

* In ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', Jack Spicer pretty much fits this trope, to the point where other villains used his name as a slang term to describe this trope. Jack-Bots, indeed.

* It's pretty hard to bring oneself to hate any of the villains in the ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' cartoons, because most of the time, their idea of an evil scheme was to put on a monster costume and chase a bunch of hippies and dogs around. Not to mention, nearly all the time, the motive is to "scare people away" for some reason or other, but never kill.

** There was one episode where they unmasked the villain and were all like "You're going to jail!" only for a police officer to inform them that, seeing as she was on her own property, not actually hurting or threatening anyone, and not covering up for any sort of criminal operation, she hadn't actually broken any laws and so she wasn't going to jail.

** This has been [[Averted Trope|averted]] in ''[[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc|Mystery Inc.]]'' as the villains are ''much more'' willing to kill, or at least maim, the gang. One even tried arson to stop the [[Scooby-Dooby Doors|door gag]]. No wonder this Shaggy hates mysteries.

** On the original series, they weren't out to hurt anybody; almost every one of them was involved in some kind of ludicrous real estate scheme where they really, really wanted to have the rights to some particular land/house, and thought the best way to do that was to put on a monster costume.

* ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'''s [[Alliteration|Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak]]. In the first two animated specials in the first generation line, he floods Strawberryland to demand its berries as ransom, and cheats to win a bake-off in which the prize is a ''gazebo''. With his associate Sour Grapes, their crimes in the subsequent four shows are: framing Strawberry for taking a bribe as a pet show judge and being complicit in their cheating, stealing a box of recipes, capturing a friendly monster with the intent of selling it to a circus, and trying to use the Berrykins to create a super-perfume. Sometimes, the ''real'' dangers to the heroes are unintentional on the villains' part: Lem and Ada are hiding in the recipe box, and the perfume mixing results in a smelly cloud that threatens to stink up Strawberryland. Also, as far as weaknesses go...in the third special, he crumbles under the heroine's threat to annoy him endlessly with her "berry talk".

** In all fairness, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of a [http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/gazebo.html Gazebo].

* In one episode of ''[[The Legend of Zelda (animation)|The Legend of Zelda]]'', "The Moblins Are Revolting", Ganon's minions grow tired of doing his bidding and manage to get rid of him (temporarily), then conduct their own attack on Hyrule Castle. Link and Zelda don't even stay to defend the castle because it's not in any danger; the monsters wipe each other out in the process of trying to invade, and never get anywhere near the building.

* Played with in ''[[The Batman]]'' with veteran Bat-villain Killer Moth. As with his comics version, he started out as some weirdo in a costume. He later got transformed into a giant super-strong mutant moth with the ability to spit acid...but he retains his milquetoast personality, so he's really pretty easy to deal with.

[[Category:Saturday Morning Cartoon]]

[[Category:Villains]]