Villain Exit Stage Left: Difference between revisions

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Line 65: ** This was even lampooned in an issue of MAD Magazine, in which Count Olaf goes into a showing of ''[[The Lord of the Rings\|Return of the King]]'' and Mr. Poe says it's too much trouble to go after him. * Used in the ''[[Ender's Game]]''-universe novel ''Shadow of the Giant'' to create a moral dilemma: in order to save a hostage, Bean promises the villain he'll let him escape, and then has to decide whether to keep that promise, knowing that doing so will probably result in many deaths. * Parodied in ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[~~Discworld/The Last Hero\|~~The Last Hero]]''. Cohen's band of heroes would always let Dark Lord Harry Dread escape, and he would always hire stupid minions and make easily-escaped dungeons. They all refer to it as [[Contractual Genre Blindness\|The Code]]; either you live by the code, or you don't. If you're a villain this means being a [[Card-Carrying Villain]], and if you're a hero you benefit from [[Plot Armour]]. If you don't live by The Code, then that means that those ineffectual villains can [[The Gloves Come Off\|stop playing around,]] or that the heroes don't have to let the villain escape. It's not just tradition, it's a way of life. Which means either you [[Nobody Can Die\|live by the code]] or, you know. [[Anyone Can Die\|Not.]] ** The Old Count from ''[[~~Discworld/Carpe Jugulum\|~~Carpe Jugulum]]'' benefits from a variant of this: he always makes sure that his castle is full of easily-improvised anti-vampire weapons, and the villagers who defeat him never actually ''scatter'' the ashes so he'll stay dead-dead. * Justified in ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', where the Warrior Code makes it so that the winning cats have to let the defeated cats escape, to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. ** Also played straight at the end of ''A Dangerous Path'', where Tigerstar just runs away without putting up a fight. Line 185: * Happens in every series in ''[[Transformers]]''. Typically the reason for the Decepticons getting away in the old series was that they could fly and the Autobots couldn't, even though they could in the pilot episode. A spin on it was done in ''Transformers Armada'', where the Decepticons got away by teleporting; the episodes that revolved around getting a Minicon always had them teleporting away, regardless of whether they got it or not. This led some to some moments where they would leave even if they had the overall advantage. Although this wasn't the only Transformers series that did it, it did it the most frequently. * In an episode of ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'', [[Villain of the Week]] The Junkman has been tied to a chair on his own ship. He tricks Jimmy into freeing him, then heads over to an escape pod, and escapes, while everyone just stands there. * In ''[[The Magician (French TV series)\|The Magician]]'', while Ace Cooper would always be able to capture the minor, one shoot villains in each episode, the major baddies such as Black Jack, Sonny Boy and Faceless would always escape. In Black Jack's case, it's not that he ran away, but is that his lawyer Clockwise would always be able to twist the facts around so Black Jack wouldn't be arrested. * [[Big Bad\|Slade]] does this in the first season finale of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)\|Teen Titans]]'', after his mask gets knocked off and he's decided he's had enough. He ''does'', however, trigger his lair's self-destruct so that the Titans won't be able to follow him. The season four finale has a variation, as Slade is actually [[Enemy Mine\|not really a villain at that point]] and gets flung away by [[Satan\|Trigon]] from the final battle, not to be seen again. Later on, though, Robin expresses his belief that Slade survived and returned to his villainous ways. * At the end of [[The Movie]] of ''[[Batman Beyond]]'', Joker is apparently so used to this trope through the years tangling with Batman that when Terry destroys his [[Kill Sat]] control and sends the ensuing [[Death From Above]] heading right towards the Joker's hideout, his only response is: