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Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga
* Mousse from ''[[Ranma ½]]'' is a loser whose plots against Ranma go only so far before backfiring spectacularly. He's usually played as an unrepentant jerk, although maybe once a season, he'd get a moment of quiet reflection for the audience to sympathize with him—right before going back to his old ways, naturally.
** Both the ineffectual and sympathetic aspects are ironic, because Mousse is the most ruthlessly homicidal of Ranma's regular rivals. Kuno simply wants to humiliate Ranma and get both Akane and "the pig-tailed girl"; his weapon is just a bokken. Ryoga initially enters the series with an apparent intent to kill, but settles down for pretty much just wanting to steal Akane away and be able to claim that he's better than Ranma after the early [[Martial Arts and Crafts|Martial Arts Figure Skating]] story. By contrast, Mousse spends most of the series willing to do just about anything to kill Ranma, routinely using bladed and impaling weapons and attacking with ambushes. He even comments once on being willing to slip poisonous mushrooms into Ranma's food.
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* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: SEVENS]]'', it’s much easier to list the members of the [[Mega Corp| Goha Corp]] who ''do not'' deserve this designation than the ones who do, literally: {{spoiler| [[Big Bad Wannabe| Yugo]]}}, [[The Man Behind The Man| Otes]], [[Evil Genius| Nail]], and [[Dark Action Girl| Mimi]] are the only competent members, the rest are, at most, [[Laughably Evil]]. This is especially true during the Team Battle Royale arc where they are unable to discover Otes' identity or location despite him being an employee and the fact that they own the online server than controls the Solid Vision system. (To put this in perspective, in the original anime, KaibaCorp owned the server and Kaiba or one of his employees could locate a duelist within a minute.) Their goal is to abolish the Rush Duel system, which [[Playful Hacker]] protagonist Yuga Ohdo programmed into their computer system, and despite ''dozens'' of engineers and programmers working around the clock, they cannot even find the implanted rootkit, much less deactivate it. Yuga didn’t even create the backdoor system that accepted his program, and their plans to steal the information or trick Yuga out of the codes fail in the most absurd ways. (One seriously has to wonder why a more malevolent hacker has yet to rob them blind with such bad security.) Even worse, most members that try have to use the Rush Duel system themselves, [[I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham| and many start to seriously have a lot of fun doing so.]]
==
* The [[Those Two Bad Guys|South Korean mice]] in the propaganda-tastic North Korean series ''A Squirrel and a Hedgehog.'' The pair, consisting of domineering [[Jerkass]] [[Four Eyes, Zero Soul|Mulmangcho]] and his meeker, one-eared companion Yelipalip, migrate from faction to faction amongst the villains, and are consistently mistreated and abused. All of their efforts to prove their worth, do something evil, and make it higher up in the ranks of whichever group they're currently attached to inevitably fail, miserably and pitifully, usually thanks to the heroes. More than once, the two are actually arrested and imprisoned by their own bosses and almost executed because they got the blame for what the [[Dressing as the Enemy|undercover good guys]], Geumsagi and Juldarami, did. So far, they have always managed to somehow get out of such situations alive. Although they ''clearly'' want to be evil and respected (Mulmangcho more so than Yelipalip), they fail so often and so pitifully it's difficult not to feel bad for them.▼
** It should also be noted that this was originally an evil ''trio'' of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, but the third guy, Mulsajo, whose distinguishing characteristic was that he wore a pink shirt, was even more ineffectual than his comrades and was blown up with a grenade midway through one of the earlier story arcs, leaving just his two buddies to carry the mantle of constantly failing.▼
== Comic Books ==▼
* [[Batman]] has a rogue's gallery with some of the best villains in comic history. Sadly, he also has some of the lamest:
** The Riddler is often treated as slightly less of a threat than most of Batman's gallery because his particular lunacy isn't inherently violent, and he has a compulsion to ''tell'' Batman and the police what his plans are (he's ''tried'' not to, but he just can't). It's tough to write a Riddler plot that can believably challenge Batman...so many writers don't, essentially writing him as a joke. The difficulty of writing good Riddler stories may also be a factor in the character's recent [[Heel Face Turn]], wherein he decided to use his genius for puzzles to ''solve'' crimes as a (well paid) private detective...[[Status Quo Is God|at least for
*** One issue of ''Batman Adventures'' takes this and runs with it for all it's worth. The Riddler decides to try one last time to beat Batman, vowing that if Batman solves the riddle and defeats him, he'll give up crime forever. The riddle he comes up with really ''is'' good, but Batman's busy with multiple other villains and essentially decides to not spend time on the Riddler, and catch him after the fact if necessary. He catches him anyway, completely by chance, and admits as much to the Riddler when asked how he solved the puzzle. Satisfied that he outwitted Batman, even though he got caught, Riddler sings all the way back to Arkham.
** Similarly, the fact that the Penguin is perfectly sane may have contributed to his mutation into a gray market white-collar criminal who Batman is grudgingly willing to tolerate as a source of information on the criminal underworld.
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** [[Stan Lee]] once claimed in an interview that the one character he may have regretted creating was Diablo. Yep, this was a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] who was purposely designed as a Card-Carrying Villain, hence his name. He was pretty much Marvel's poster boy for the [[Alchemy Is Magic]] trope, but never really accomplished much. In fact, initially it seemed he was [[Only In It For The Money]], selling his alchemical concoctions to make profit, but failed at that because most of his potions wore off in a few weeks at most.
==
▲* The [[Those Two Bad Guys|South Korean mice]] in the propaganda-tastic North Korean series ''A Squirrel and a Hedgehog.'' The pair, consisting of domineering [[Jerkass]] [[Four Eyes, Zero Soul|Mulmangcho]] and his meeker, one-eared companion Yelipalip, migrate from faction to faction amongst the villains, and are consistently mistreated and abused. All of their efforts to prove their worth, do something evil, and make it higher up in the ranks of whichever group they're currently attached to inevitably fail, miserably and pitifully, usually thanks to the heroes. More than once, the two are actually arrested and imprisoned by their own bosses and almost executed because they got the blame for what the [[Dressing as the Enemy|undercover good guys]], Geumsagi and Juldarami, did. So far, they have always managed to somehow get out of such situations alive. Although they ''clearly'' want to be evil and respected (Mulmangcho more so than Yelipalip), they fail so often and so pitifully it's difficult not to feel bad for them.
▲** It should also be noted that this was originally an evil ''trio'' of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, but the third guy, Mulsajo, whose distinguishing characteristic was that he wore a pink shirt, was even more ineffectual than his comrades and was blown up with a grenade midway through one of the earlier story arcs, leaving just his two buddies to carry the mantle of constantly failing.
* Kaa, from Disney's ''[[The Jungle Book (Disney film)|The Jungle Book]]''. [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|His interest in Mowgli]] occasionally bordered on the paedophilic, though. Unlike in [[The Jungle Book (novel)|the book]], where he's a benevolent [[Badass]] [[Old Master]].
* [[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Captain Hook]]. After a while, you just start to hate Peter for being so darn mean to the Captain.
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* Inspector Clouseau, originally intended as an incompetent version of [[Inspector Javert]] in the original ''[[The Pink Panther]]'', managed to be so much more sympathetic than protagonist Charles "The Phantom" Lytton that he was retooled into the hero of the film's sequels.
** In the following film, ''A Shot in the Dark'', Clouseau transmitted this ISV condition to his boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (soon to become the ''former'' Chief Inspector Dreyfus). Dreyfus is actually a good detective who, it's implied, would never have gone [[Ax Crazy]] [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|if it hadn't been for Clouseau.]] After his [[Face Heel Turn]], poor Dreyfus has to look on helplessly as Clouseau survives all of Dreyfus' numerous murder attempts solely due to [[The Fool|the dumbest of dumb luck.]]
*** And
* [[Vincent Price]] as Shelby Carpenter in ''Laura.'' This is how his ''own girlfriend'' sums him up:
{{quote|"He's no good, but he's what I want. I'm not a nice person, Laura, and neither is he. He knows I know he's just what he is. He also knows that I don't care. We belong together because we're both weak and can't seem to help it. That's why I know he's capable of murder.<ref>Keep in mind that she says he's ''capable'' of murder. {{spoiler|He doesn't actually do it.}}</ref> He's like me."}}
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* Jerry, the [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Fargo]]''. The main humor of this [[Black Comedy]] movie is how his ludicrous plot to become rich - kidnapping his own wife and making a ransom demand to her rich father - backfires due to his own ineptitude. The thugs he hires to do the job are violent sociopaths who ''seriously'' botch the plan by murdering a state trooper and two witnesses, starting a series of [[Disaster Dominoes]] that results in his wife and her father murdered, and Jerry left with nothing and in prison, the true victim being his ten-year-old son who has lost both his parents as a result. While Jerry does come off as borderline sympathetic, one must remember he caused this tragedy via his own stupidity and has nobody to blame for it all but himself.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Prince (later King) Korin, [[The Dragon]] {{spoiler|(although the [[Big Bad]] dies first)}} of [[Nightrunner|Lynn Flewelling's]] ''Tamír Trilogy''...although, especially towards the end, he ends up less sympathetic than merely pitiful. In real-world history, kings like him tended to end up with the sobriquet of "The Unready".
* While Sloan in the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' has certainly done some terrible things—killing a man, selling out his village to man-eating [[mook]]s, and bullying the protagonist in his younger years—it's revealed that he did everything out of love for his daughter, and so lies on a fuzzy line between this trope and [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]].
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** The Mud Monster from "You Can't Scare Me!" The title kind of gives it away, not only is he not scary, he's too slow to catch anything capable of moving faster than a brisk walk. It says a lot for a monster's reputation when a child is capable of [[Talking the Monster to Death]] and getting him to back off.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* The Stillman Sisters from an episode of ''[[Charmed]]'', entitled "The Power of Three Blondes". They are trying to steal the Halliwell sisters' powers and prove that they're more than just dumb blondes, and they come oh-so-close to succeeding at both.
* Dr. Clayton Forrester of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' springs to mind. As his character brief in the show's official Episode Guide puts it, "His passion for depravity far exceeds his aptitude."
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** Spike is a mixture of this and [[Draco in Leather Pants]]. It's why he had a sizable fan following even when he was pathetic and laughably useless.
* Halfway through his [[Villain Decay]] and before his (grudging) [[Heel Face Turn]], Crais of ''[[Farscape]]'' became this, having always been a [[Large Ham|little ridiculous]] and also [[Freudian Excuse|rather sad]]. He remains an egomaniac throughout, though.
* Peter Campbell of ''[[Mad Men]]''. Sure, he's an obsequious little jerk who is looking for any opportunity to take advantage of any tiny opening. He's a total jerk to
** That was Season 1. Then [[Character Development]] kicks in. I'm not going to spoil the details, but by Season 4, he's possibly the single most sympathetic (in the sense that "you actually like him because he's a good guy") character on the show.
** Peter becomes sympathetic when one realizes that he is trapped in the system just as much as the other main characters. His delusions are crushed at the end of season 1 and he realizes that being a jerk will not get him anywhere in the firm. He is much more humble after this and stops being a villain.
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*** Plus there was Game Face from the [[Sequel Series]], ''[[Power Rangers Dino Super Charge]]'', the episode "Freaky Frightday". Give a storyboard designer ten minutes to design a monster with the personality of a tough gym teacher and an [[I Know Madden Kombat]] theme, the result would be… Much better than this one. He looked like someone took all the equipment a high school PhysEd department was going to throw away and glued it all together in a vaguely humanoid monstrosity. He had a large set of [[Combo-Platter Powers]] set due to an arsenal of equipment, but with no synergy whatsoever, and while he did have hilarious dialogue, he was about as much of a threat as the pile of junk he resembled.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* An unintentional case was Retribution, a group who were pivotal to a storyline that may have looked good on paper. In 2020, this group of masked hooligans "invaded" WWE and wrecked everything in their path on a mission to bring the organization down. Or rather, that was the intent. Made up of NXT stars that had been given ''ridiculous'' names and silly costumes, they were far more annoying than they were evil, and were quickly condemned by both fans and critics. Reportedly, most mainstream WWE stars at the time felt sorry for them. WWE tried to salvage the storyline by "revealing" [[Mustafa Ali]] as the group's leader, but to no avail. After seven months, the group disbanded to little fanfair.
==
* Dr. Einstein of ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]''. At the very least, he's helped [[Ax Crazy|Jonathan]] escape from jail and evade the police. He probably has something to do with the latter's ability to be a contender in the play's [[Body Count Competition]] as well. However, he's clearly motivated by fear and spends a lot of time drunk. This may be the reason for
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Xenogears]]'', Kahran Ramsus appears as a primary villain early on, and, with his prettyboy features, white hair, and usage of a sword as his weapon, seems destined to be the big bad. {{spoiler|By the end of the game, his [[Beware the Nice Ones|wallflower-like personal assistant]] has turned out to be the real [[Big Bad]], he finds out that he's a failed clone designed to mimic the powers of the main character (who he has repeatedly lost to), and is abandoned by his masters for his repeated failures.}}
* ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' had Gilgamesh, the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Large Ham|enthusiastic, melodramatic]], and ultimately [[Affably Evil]] [[The Dragon|sidekick]], who, despite being a reasonably tough boss to fight, really talked himself up to be a lot more than he was...and eventually, after deciding that he liked the heroes a lot more than his boss, he {{spoiler|[[Taking You with Me|blew himself up to take out another boss]] that was attacking them - but not without a cheesy and confusing farewell speech.}}
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* ''[[Steambot Chronicles]]'' has Dudley, an obnoxious, tough-talking, muscle-brained trotmobile rider who the player runs into on about 4 occasions (3 during the main story and another in an optional encounter). While not necessarily a villain per se, the oaf constantly boasts about his strength and generally acts like a prick (he picks fights with anyone he can, destroys a farm just because "flowers are stupid", and think that a massive zeppelin is hoarding treasure). In the hero ending of the game, he can even be seen during the credits making what appears to be threatening gestures towards Vanilla (who is leaving on a ship for his homeland).
* ''[[Halo]]'' has the Unggoy/Grunts, the main cannon fodder for the Covenant. Small (by Covenant standards), requiring gas masks to breathe in non-methane atmosphere, mistreated by the other races, they're slaves who come across as cowards. In large part because, fearing an uprising, the Covenant doesn't want to give them any actual combat training. Half the fandom feels sorry for them. The other half [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|loves to slaughter them]]. Averted in ''Halo3'' and ''Halo3: ODST'': there, they take [[Took a Level in Badass|so many levels in badassery]].
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' has some of the best villains in fantasy. It also has quite a few idiots:
** Arvel the Swift, the first bad guy most players come across. The quest involving him requires you to find him and get the Golden Claw he stole. When you find the infamous thief, he’s been caught by a [[Giant Spider]], and you have to rescue him. However, once you cut him down he calls you a fool and makes a run for it; unfortunately for him, he’s actually not very swift, and barring a hideous streak of bad luck, he’s easy to catch. In fact, if you DO have a hideous streak of bad luck, the guy doesn’t realize he’s about to charge into a crypt full of [[Our Zombies Are Different| hungry Draugr]], and even if he gets past them (which he won’t) he’d run into a hallway full of deadly traps and… Long story short, he’s a stupid bandit.
** Ulfr the Blind, the bandit who "watches" the entrance to White River Watch. Already, this is clearly a bunch of [[Stupid Crooks| Stupid Bandits]], putting their hideout so close to Whiterun, but they have a ‘’blind’’ man guarding the entrance. Even worse, it’s pretty easy for you to convince him you’re another bandit, unless you actually attack him, and if you DO that, he suddenly seems perfectly able to see. So either he’s not blind, and is simply lazy, or he’s the skilled at blind-fighting, but a terrible guard.
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** In [[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom| the sequel]], {{spoiler|Kohga is still a lame villain, but [[Took a Level In Badass| a much better boss]].}}
* The Panther King from ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'' is stupid to the point of absurd, not to mention gullible. His sole motivation for opposing Conker stems from his obsession with fixing the table next to his throne and [[The Dragon|Professor von Kripplespac's]] claim that red squirrels make good table legs. Despite this suggestion making no sense whatsoever, he's willing to commit acts like kidnapping and murder to obtain a red squirrel, which Conker actually ''isn't''. {{spoiler|Little wonder that Kripplespac succeeded in [[The Starscream |his plan to assassinate him]].}}
* ''[[Resident Evil]]'' may have one of the best villains in video games with Albert Wesker, but also has one of the worst with Ramon Salazar from the fourth game. He claims to be a
* [[Mega Corp|Majestic]], from ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]''. What does it say in a game with a name like ''that'' when the genocidal alien looks more competent and more ethical than his human foes? Majestic is a large international organization dedicated to defeating the Furons, while secretly plotting their own goals of [[Take Over the World| world domination.]] Thing is, the Furon invasionary force consists of… [[Easy Logistics| one guy, the protagonist, Crypto]]. For all their highly-trained agents and cutting edge technology, Majestic - A [[Non-Indicative Name]] if there ever was one - can’t capture or defeat this one alien. Seriously.
* Zsasz is a villain who appears in ''every'' game in the ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' series, and he's lame in ''all'' of them. He has no motivation whatsoever (other than kill anyone he comes across) and is almost laughably easy to defeat. If his "plan" involves hiding from Batman, there will be about a hundred ways the player can spot him, and if it involves combat, he'll be floored in one punch. Even compared to most [[Jobber]] opponents in video games, he's pathetic.
* Rick the Door Technician from ''[[Star Wars Jedi: Survivor]]''. When you enter the Imperial Base on Koboh, you will come across a figure that ''appears'' to be a boss, with a boss's health bar. But he's just a Scout Trooper with Scout Trooper attributes, and the game identifies him as "Rick the Door Technician". He'll charge madly at you and attack, but will do barely any damage. And you can drop him with a single swipe of your lightsaber. Rick has become so beloved that fans have made jokes, memes, videos and even [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fi-made-a-poster-for-the-best-boss-in-the-game-v0-dgp7mrrm9mza1.jpg%3Fs%3D8d00fd841cf08cfb835143366c5f59888a9d5e63 posters] celebrating him.
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* ''[[Burnt Face Man]]''{{"}}s
** Despite that, Taps Man {{spoiler|managed to kill Burnt Face Man's rival, Slightly Bruised Man, with a spray of scalding water, followed with tepid water with lead piping and a faulty boiler.}}
* [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad]], most of the time. On the rare occasion the mischief he gets up to is more serious than [[Poke the Poodle|Poodle Poking]], he's likely to fail pretty miserably at it. It's just as well, though, as the local approach to law enforcement is [https://web.archive.org/web/20150316030334/http://www.homestarrunner.com/jailcartoon.html just as pathetic].
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* Verosika Mayday, Blitzo's ex-girlfriend and now rival from ''[[Helluva Boss]]''. [[Breakout Character]], maybe, but as a [[Horny Devil]], not very competent. A leader of a group of other succubi and incubi, Verisika figures a group of hormone-crazed college students on spring break are easy prey. She's right, and easily tempts them into an orgy of bestial lust, but makes the mistake of doing it ''on a public beach''. The end of the episode sees Blitzo's crew - who were very careful to leave no witnesses to ''their'' evil deeds - fleeing back to Hell while the police surround Verosika and her group, likely leaving a ''lot'' for her to explain to whatever Overlord she's working for.
==
* About half the [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]] in ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' fit this trope. (The rest, of course, are anywhere on the scale between [[Affably Evil]] and [[Complete Monster]].)
* Waldo and Steve in the [[Web Comic]] ''[[CRFH]]'', though they are [[Gonk|far too ugly]] both physically and socially to ever be truly sympathetic.
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* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20110128104159/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=081023 Minion Master] from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.
** In an alternative universe, [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20090910 he's] [[Not So Harmless]].
* Drizz'l in ''[[8-
** Pretty much, [[Everything Trying to Kill You|everything]] in [[Crapsack World|the universe]] has [[Butt Monkey|two purposes]]: to hurt [[Heroic Sociopath|Black]] [[Complete Monster|Mage]] and humiliate Drizz'l.
* The Flaming Prince from ''[[Van Von Hunter]]''.
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** He's mostly out of his depth and as he tries to grasp any straw, "bloody list of things to atone for keeps getting bigger".
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Dr. Horrible of ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog]]'', portrayed as a decent fellow with evil ambitions and a crush on a girl from his laundromat, while also being bullied around by [[Jerk Jock]] superhero Captain Hammer.
** He even qualifies as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]; he thinks [[Utopia Justifies the Means]] and a benevolent dictatorship would do that. Kind of like [[Pinky and The Brain|the Brain]].
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* While she worms her way out of trouble much more successfully than the Critic and could dominate the world if she got her mind fixed, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] is still just a shut-in alcoholic who'll never make anything of her life.
* Kami Steele of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' [[Spin-Off]] ''The Program'' seems to fit on and off, depending on the thread. Her first appearance had her pointing a gun [[Gangsta Style]] at a girl with the intent to kill her, but ran away over being ''yelled at'' by said girl, who had started to poke holes in her plans. She has since started a [[Not So Harmless|body count]], but still has her moments of incompetence. One could also make a case for Version 4's Jimmy Brennan, [[Not So Harmless|up until he]] {{spoiler|beat Philip Ward to death with a branch}}. Prior to that, though, he definitely qualified due to his [[Small Name, Big Ego|attitude]].
* [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1370 SCP-1370] of the ''[[SCP Foundation]]''. An [[Omnicidal Maniac]] in personality, in ''ability'' it's completely harmless.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]:
** "Owl's Well That Ends Well" involves the usually-good dragon cub Spike temporarily becoming a villain, but definitely of the "ineffectual sympathetic" variety, [[The Woobie|with the emphasis on "sympathetic".]] For context, when an owl named [[Unknown Rival|Owlowicious]] shows up to do some of the work Spike had been typically doing for the girls, Spike ends up getting less attention from them than before, and in turn, [[Green-Eyed Monster|resents the owl a fair bit]]. After being scolded by Twilight for lying about a book not being there, he thinks the owl set him up, and in turn, tries to do the same to the owl, by planting a fake dead mouse with [[A Bloody Mess|ketchup blood]] in Twilight Sparkle's room; he gets caught in the act. {{spoiler|After running away, ending up encountering a dragon while gone, and then being saved from the dragon by Twilight and the owl, he apologized for the way he was behaving and is back to being one of the good guys.}}
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** Killface is so sympathetic, especially when compared to [[Jerkass]] [[Designated Hero]] Xander Crews, that it's easy to forget that he brutally killed two people in the pilot and has added to his body count throughout the series. It helps that some of the other members of the cast have committed similar misdeeds and/or are [[Asshole Victim]]s.
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' qualifies for this trope most of the time; more often than not, his schemes are thwarted by the Ditz portion of his [[Genius Ditz]] personality, rather than by his arch-nemesis or his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] robot. Of particular note is the episode where he survives a [[Training from Hell]] in order to receive some [[Humongous Mecha]]s from his leaders, only to be shot into a sun for his troubles.
* ''[[Yin Yang Yo!
* ''[[South Park
* Dr. Drakken from ''[[Kim Possible]]'' never gets the respect he thinks he should have; he always fails his capers, sometimes even without the help of Team Possible. Maybe he had the ''potential'' to be a great villain, but he never acted on it. He often gets mistaken for the more respected Dementor and, at the end of the series, he is outright told how much of a failure of a villain he has been (despite having come closer to [[Take Over the World|taking over the world]] than any of his peers, and ending up with {{spoiler|much of the credit for saving the world from the [[Alien Invasion]])}}. If it wasn't for his [[The Dragon|Dragon]], Shego, he wouldn't be a villain at all.
** Arguably, every villain in ''[[Kim Possible]]'' is like this, aside from Shego, who's the only one with any amount of competence or fighting ability.
*** Keeping Shego on
* ''[[G.I. Joe
** Of course, he was never anything but effective and unsympathetic in the comics, where, among other things, he ''killed his own son''. Oh, and he used to be a ''[[Honest John's Dealership|used car salesman]]'', [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|the]] ''[[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|fiend]]''!
*** He does get the ineffectual part still - sometimes as part of a [[Plan]], sometimes because it's an imposter performing poorly. And sometimes, Destro just plain doesn't like him, and is willing to take the loss just to make him look bad, mostly because of his 'thing' for the Baroness.
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* The Box Ghost of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' draws the line between this and [[Harmless Villain]]. He has the potential to be a great baddie (if one episode and his {{spoiler|[[Future Badass|badass future self]]}} is any indications), but he just never makes it. Out of all the ghosts Danny has fought, Box Ghost is strictly in the "Who Cares" category, but he tries, he oh so tries.
** And his love of boxes is reminiscent of [[Kids Prefer Boxes|a small child who prefers the box to the toy that came in it.]]
* ''[[Wacky Races]]''{{'}} |Dick Dastardly
** Just drive, you moron! Your car is so fast that you can build elaborate booby traps in the time it takes the other racers to catch up! [[Fridge Logic|If you'd just forget about them and keep driving, you'd win every race hands down!]]
*** It wasn't for nothing that he had a whole trope [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|named after him]].
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* Tom, from [[Tom and Jerry]], was so ineffectual and sympathetic that, in many cartoons, one failed to see how Jerry was even a victim. Particularly [[Egregious]] examples, in fact, would cite that he wanted nothing more than to leave Jerry in peace, and Jerry could not stop [[Designated Hero|antagonizing him and trying to ruin his life.]] Often, the shows started with Jerry trying to steal Tom's milk, break into a safe/refrigerator/ship that Tom was guarding or just being a [[Jerkass|dick in general]]. Granted, sometimes Tom's methods can get [[Disproportionate Retribution|a bit extreme]], he's just trying to protect his property or [[Punch Clock Villain|doing his job]].
** [[Depending on the Writer|Though there were just as many examples were he was not sympathetic at all]].
* ''[[X-Men: Evolution
** Usual, given that this is the reason why they're so popular, with people playing up the ineffectual sympathetic part, and ignoring the vilain part.
* ''[[Adventure Time]]''{{'}}s [[An Ice Person|Ice King]] plays this as a [[Deconstruction]] / [[Zig-Zagging Trope]]: he wants to force a [[Everything's Better with Princesses]] into [[And Now You Must Marry Me|marrying him]], but he comes across as sincerely lonely and desperate for love. At some points, however, he'll wind up saying or doing something ''really'' messed up, [[Double Subversion|cluing the viewer in that he's really just a sociopath]].
* Zordrak's minions, the Urpneys (and sometimes even his former self) of ''[[The Dreamstone]]'', are a mix of this alongside the [[Minion with an F In Evil]] category. The fact that their overall goal usually amounted to little more than [[Poke the Poodle|giving people scary dreams]] didn't help much. Granted since Rufus and Amberley are often [[The Meddling Kids Are Useless|Ineffectual Sympathetic Heroes]] they do at least briefly get the upper hand every now and then.
* [[Big Bad|General Specific]] from ''[[Sheep in The Big City]]''. To put it bluntly, how hard could it be to catch one sheep in a city where nobody likes sheep? Well, this guy spends the whole series trying and failing to do so.
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** In ''[[Star Trek: Lower Decks]]'', the Packleds as a whole are this, being woefully stupid and [[Laughably Evil]], almost as if “incompetent villains” is [[Planet of Hats| their “hat” as a species]]. But special mention goes to Rumdar from the episode “The Spy Humongous”. Sent to infiltrate the ''Cerritos'' as a [[Trojan Prisoner]], he all but confesses to Ransom his intent to steal information regarding their technology, which is already a common Packled MO. (“We're not exactly dealing with a Tal Shiar here,” says Ransom to another officer.) Eventually, Rumdar mistakes an airlock for a restroom, blows himself out of it, and has to be rescued by Ransom - Dr. T'Ana is puzzled as to how he can still be alive.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* While they are often portrayed this way in fiction, Italian Fascists were neither ineffectual nor sympathetic. Just ask any of the people who tried to oppose Mussolini and his politics before [[World War II]]. Dissidents were often beaten within an inch of their lives, force-fed castor oil, and sent into exile on deserted islands. It's just that that's kid stuff compared to the [[Those Wacky Nazis|other forces of evil]] we were fighting against -- ''[[Red Scare|or alongside of]]''—during that same war.
** They just barely managed to conquer a tribal African country that had 19th century military technology. And that was the height of their military achievements.
*** That doesn't change the fact that they were a danger to Italian
*** "''Good soldiers, bad officers''" is how Rommel described the Italians, and as for how ineffectual they were, one of his other quotes was "''The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier''".
**** Of course, seeing that an army's capacity to organize, plan, and cause its various elements to cooperate efficiently is more important than individual competance, it's still not the makings of a very good military, as Italy's entire post Roman military history shows.
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