Spikes of Villainy/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An evil character's outfit (or body itself) is spiked.

  • Straight: The villain's armor has spikes on it.
  • Exaggerated: The villain's entire outfit is hidden under a mass of spikes.
  • Justified: The villain puts spikes on his gloves, so that he can use them in self-defense.
    • The villain's main attack is a body slam and the spikes are for extra "oomph".
    • The hero's a kickboxer.
    • The villain wants to intimidate his enemies with his spiky armor.
    • The spikes allow the villain to decorate his armor with the heads of his fallen foes.
  • Inverted: The hero wears some spiked armor into battle.
    • Alternatively, the villain wears divots.
  • Subverted: We see a shot of the villain in his "spiky" armor, but then he steps to the side and we realize he was just standing in front of a somewhat spiky, large weapon.
    • The guy with the spiky outfit eventually does a Heel Face Turn and keeps the spikes.
  • Double Subverted: After sidestepping, the villain is revealed to not have spikes on his armor, it was just something behind him...specifically, The Dragon, all ready for combat in his spiked shoulder guards.
    • The guy with the spiky outfit does a Heel Face Turn and keeps the spikes. Until he becomes fully integrated into the hero's team, at which point he ditches the spikes.
  • Parodied: After donning his spiked armor, the villain stumbles around awkwardly and barely avoids stabbing himself several times before giving up on it.
  • Deconstructed: The spikes are too long to be functional, and it becomes obvious that no living person could do normal activities in them.
  • Reconstructed: The spikes are a deliberate self-handicap: upon seeing them, the hero realizes the depths of the villain's poise and control, because anyone else would cut themselves badly trying to walk in that outfit.
    • The spikes are missiles.
    • Though an ordinary person would barely be able to move in the villain's spike-bedecked armor, the villain is freakishly strong and dexterous enough to use the spikes to his advantage.
  • Zig Zagged: After sidestepping, the villain is revealed to not have spikes on his armor, but The Dragon is behind him, clad in spikes. However, the Dragon is actually a heroic Reverse Mole trying to get close to the villain so he can assassinate him.
  • Averted: The armor in the series is spike-free, or there is no correlation between spiked armor and moral character.
  • Enforced: The series designer is copying a culture where spikes are a symbol of power, or they plan to sell a line of "Synyster Spykes" armor for the evil villain action figure.
  • Lampshaded: "Wow, that's a lot of spikes he's wearing."
  • Invoked: The villain glues spikes onto his armor in order to look more impressive and menacing.
  • Defied: The new Evil Overlord, inheriting the old one's armor, cuts the spikes off because he thinks they look ridiculous.
  • Discussed: "No, we can tell he's evil. He has spikes on his armor." "Do they do anything?" "...No."
  • Conversed: Alice and Bob visit a museum and see some old sets of armor on display. Alice sees one with some spikes, and jokes that it must have belonged to an old movie villain.
  • Played For Drama: The Dragon is a giant, and each spike holds a corpse belonging to one of the millions of foolish heros that dared to challenge him. Like the hero's father.
  • Played For Laugths: The spiked suit of armor keeps getting stuck in doors, leading the wearer to awkwardly stagger through them.

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