Over at Subtle Pandemonium, Sully has posted about a cliché he hates. It involves a Snooping Little Kid, but there isn’t an exact trope that covers it. If I were to create the page myself, I’d call it Discovered Evil Plan Guarantee. Anyway, I figured I’d throw my contribution into the pot. One trope (of many) guaranteed to make me throw something across the room is You Have Failed Me for the Last Time.
There’s not much to say. I just hate it. It’s right up there with ‘evil cackles’ and ‘revealing your plan to the hero’ on the list of Things Done by Stupid, Uninteresting, Clichéd Villains.
Oh, sure, when Darth Vader did it, it was cool. But since he strangles someone through a viewing screen while they’re on another part of the ship, it was at least shocking.
If I were looking for a realistic reason to hate it, I’d say it comes too late. ‘For the last time’? If you’re an evil villain, you wouldn’t give a henchman a second chance no matter how much they begged, and if there was special reason to spare them the first time, you wouldn’t follow up the second failure with a line like this. Then again, if you murder henchmen for their first mistake, you’ve gone past ruthless and into needlessly wasteful.
I never finished TinMan because of this trope. When the stupid evil overlady drains her stupid henchman because the stupid and unlikeable main character slipped through his grasp, holy @#$% I get angry.
So you enrage me if you kill your own henchmen for failing. Not for betraying you or working actively against your plans, but merely for failing to live up to them. And if you use that godawful, hackneyed line, my ire increases by a factor of #@$% you.
About Fiona Canteberry
A novelist from northwest Arkansas, Fiona's range of topics include writing, tropes, and self-improvement. She goes by 'FekketCantenel' online.
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CIA should become a thing. I know I’ll be posting at least one a week, maybe more.
I’ll be sure to always reply with one of my own. I’ve got a deep well to draw from.