History Main / SortingAlgorithmOfEvil

* ''Xenoblade'' Franchise:

* Oddly subverted in the ''Literature/LoneWolf'' gamebooks, then played straight. Lone Wolf actually manages to kill two of the [[EvilOverlord Darklords]] in the first five books; each was the leader of the Darklords at the time of their deaths. Later, Lone Wolf goes on to fight more powerful opponents. Book 12 justifies the subversion by stating that the Darklords are severely weakened by [[WeaksauceWeakness clean air]]; they could only fight at full strength in utterly corrupted environments. After the Darklords are defeated, the trope is played straight, as Lone Wolf's victory managed to piss off Naar, the ''god'' that created the Darklords in the first place.

A problem comes up if a long-running show goes [[PostScriptSeason past its]] first GrandFinale. We may believe that the ultimate EvilOverlord is enough of a tactical dunce to think that sending his henchmen out in ascending order was a valid strategy. But why should the ''new'', unrelated, BigBad happen to be even stronger? Sometimes the {{Big Bad}}s might form a string of [[TheManBehindTheMan Men Behind The Men]], making this structure more sensible. Although this leads to new FridgeLogic issues: why doesn't the Man Most Behind use the [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking unimaginable power]] of his position to just wipe all the heroes out [[OrcusOnHisThrone instead of just sitting there]]? If the first Big Bad is only a local terror, bigger bads may not have even been ''aware'' of the heroes. The increasing threats they face are a reflection of the threat they pose to the ultimate boss. And then there's the FridgeLogic that can rise when one wonders why later, more powerful villains would tolerate the earlier, weaker ones hatching plots of their own. If the villain of Season Three [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wants to destroy the world]], and the villain of Season Four [[TakeOverTheWorld wants to conquer it]], why would the Season Four villain tolerate his predecessor's attempts to destroy it? One way to address these issues is to make the later villain a SealedEvilInACan who only gets released after the earlier villain is defeated.

** In one of the earliest chapters of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade The Binding Blade]]'', you have the BigBad, [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking King Zephiel]][[note]]the guy with the giant lightning trident-sword[[/note]], and feared DragonRider Narcian in Araphen just as Roy's plucky and low-level band of heroes arrive. Zephiel immediately dismisses a suggestion to unleash war dragons on them and delegates the matter to Narcian, who immediately delegates it to ''his'' underling: a level 7 knight. If Zephiel had just stuck around for five minutes, he probably would have won.

* This is built in to the world of ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'', which is a sort of RolePlayingGameVerse without the RPG. For one thing, this means that characters get stronger and stronger, as if they are gaining levels. People climbing the Tower are called Regulars, and they are constantly tested at successively higher floors with higher and higher difficulty. Regulars are ranked from E-class to A-class in order of ascending power, and there's a lot of variation within a class, too. Regulars of higher levels are constantly becoming more powerful, apparently due to a combination of [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority competition and increasing standards for advancement]] and the use of [[MagicByAnyOtherName Shinsu.]] Those who reach the "top" -- the floor of [[GodEmperor Jahad's]] palace -- become Rankers, who gain even greater powers. They are have a rank that's simply a number indicating how far they are from being number one among Rankers. The top 1% are termed High Rankers. Usually, the higher one's rank, the more powerful that Ranker is. Some of the highest ranks are held by "Irregulars", people so powerful they can basically break all the rules of the Tower and wipe the floor with the lesser PhysicalGods. Also at the top are King Jahad and the heads of the Ten Great Families, who rule the Tower. That's to say nothing of the Tower's Guardians/Administrators, who gave those rulers their power. Basically, there's a ready-made roster of individuals ranging from powerless to minor CosmicEntity for the heroes to confront. Of course, not everyone in the Tower is automatically evil or hostile, but [[WorldHalfFull it's not a very nice place,]] and eventually, the story seems to start building up [[spoiler:Jahad]] as the overall BigBad. The protagonist Baam starts out as a beginning Regular and starts working his way up with numerous companions. Since Baam has special talents that enable him to become powerful very quickly after he gets past a slow start, he's usually overpowered for his current level -- he can CurbStomp a group of D-class Regulars in seconds after just becoming one himself, for example -- so he tends to be pitted against the most powerful individuals available wherever he is. Since much more powerful beings do exist in the Tower, he occasionally has a brush with someone he has absolutely no chance of beating, like the Irregular Urek Mazino, but never really has to fight one of them properly, at least not without having someone equally powerful to help.

** ''Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricaneger'' makes this easy to keep track of with the [[StandardEvilOrganizationSquad Seven Dark Spears]], who are ranked in order of how strong they are. Four of them also command their own MonsterOfTheWeek sets, whose powers are proportional to how strong they are.
** ''Series/BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger'' has a subversion in that one of the villain's strongest monsters, Dragondoran, was the first one to be send out. However, its scheme was to hide among human society and establish itself as a successful human fortune teller. When the time was right, it would execute its plan to sacrifice its customers to resurrect the BigBad. This is the reason it only appeared near the finale

** Lampshaded in [[https://lparchive.org/X-COM-Apocalypse/Update%2060/ a bonus episode]] at the end of [=GuavaMoment=]'s ''VideoGame/XComApocalypse'' LetsPlay, in a scene with what would've happened had the aliens sent their biggest and baddest ships through first. It's not pretty.

* ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' and its adaptation ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' usually uses this, with the villains choosing to create/summon progressively stronger monsters as the season goes on and the Rangers grow stronger. Sometimes, they justify this by having found a new magical or technological breakthrough in their monster creation process.
** The seasons ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' to ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'' are very obvious at this with their {{Big Bad}}s. Whenever a new BigBad arrives, they are always said to be a bigger threat compared to the previous one, forcing the Rangers to get new powers and Zords.

** ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'' has multiple evil commanders succeeding each other, who come with their own category of monsters, with the succeeding group being explicitly stronger than the preceding one. The series starts with General Branken, commanding the mindless Hades Beasts. These are succeeded by Meemy, who commands the sentient Hades Beastmen. Near the end of his run, Meemy summons the insanely strong Hades Beasmen Kings. After Meemy and this group are defeated, they are replaced with the Hades Gods of Infershia. ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' also displays this trope, but not to the explicit extent of ''Magiranger'', making no real distinction in the groups of monsters.

* The ''Franchise/KamenRider'' series is no stranger to this trope, although it became more noticeable during the Heisei Era when they started giving the heroes [[SuperMode Super Modes]] at a certain point in the show when a new tier of bad guy showed up. In ''Series/KamenRiderKuuga'' the villainous Gurongi are a warrior race with a strong class system. It is only honorable that a fight must start with the weakest and after they're finished the next strongest group takes their turn.

** ''Series/KamenRiderRevice'' starts off rather tame, but late into the series the villains get so strong that the heroes practically have to unlock a new SuperMode every other episode to keep up. Even the ''{{Mooks}}'' they produce are far stronger than the heroes in their base forms.

* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. You start out fighting several very dangerous targets, by order being a PE Teacher who sexually, emotionally and physically abuses all of his atheletes, a BrokenAce artist who has resorted into fleecing and plagiarizing the work of his pupils, abusing them and letting them die for the sake of getting profit from their work, then a vicious con-man with Mafia connections. The set of 3 afterwards, however are significantly less evil then the first 3, namely a suicidal shut in, a corporate executive who used to be a much better person and parent towards his daughter until he got drowned in power and tried to sell her to an abusive man for the sole purpose of political fame, and finally a prosecutor who attempts to defend the court even when it means rigging cases, with the former and latter becoming a loyal ally of yours afterwards. The Black Mask assassin follows this trend [[spoiler:as he too is trying to stop the BigBad from the get-go, only for a cost of the lives of thousands, including some of the beloved parents of your teammates.]] Everything takes a steep slope when it comes to the BigBad himself and the GreaterScopeVillain, [[spoiler:as the BigBad is a complete monster of a politican and a social darwinist that doesn't seem to exist for anything other than causing misery for all of Japan, and the GreaterScopeVillain is a false god who rigged everything up to this point for the sole purpose to rationalize his iron fisted rule towards the public.]] In ''Royal'', the true final boss that you fight [[spoiler:after the GreaterScopeVillain]] is even anything but evil, [[spoiler:he's just your school counselor confidant, who is revealed as a Persona user that the GreaterScopeVillain accidentially corrupted and unleashes a salvation plan which rids the world of all suffering by rewriting history so all tragic events, especially ones that your teammates faced didn't happen.]] Not to say that this is implied to be [[spoiler:just a radicalized and exaggerated version of what he is initially going to do.]]

** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'': The Subspace Emissary begins against the robotic Ancient Minister, then onto the Nintendo villains, led by Ganondorf and Bowser, then the series' perennial antagonist Master Hand and finally [[spoiler:Tabuu, ruler of Subspace]]. And in-between, the characters have to face increasingly difficult major bosses, ranging from [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Petey Piranha]] to [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Meta Ridley]].

** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl''[='s=] story mode begins against the robotic Ancient Minister, then onto the Nintendo villains, led by Ganondorf and Bowser, then the series' perennial antagonist Master Hand and finally [[spoiler:Tabuu, ruler of Subspace.]]
** [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate The World of Light]] starts with Kirby having to save the defeated playable cast and hundreds of spirits from Galeem. They fight spirits that range from Novice to Advanced to Ace to finally Legend, then fight the bosses like [[VideoGame/MonsterHunter Rathalos]] and Giga Bowser, then finally Galeem. [[spoiler:When Galeem is defeated, Dharkon takes his place, and the new world map is littered with even stronger Ace and Legend-level spirits and harder bosses like [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} Marx]] and [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Dracula]]. Then when ''he'''s defeated, the player is taken to a final map populated almost exclusively with Legend spirits, and if the player is on the path to the GoldenEnding, they fight a BossRush of all six bosses, and finally Galeem and Dharkon at the same time.]]

* In the first ''Film/{{Alien}}'' film, just one alien manages to kill off all but one crew member of the ''Nostromo'', Ripley. In ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', she has to face a ''colony'' of them, including their Queen. Then averted in ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'', which like the first in the series has only a single alien menacing our protagonists, in addition to a Queen embryo maturing in Ripley's thorax. And finally played half-straight in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' when a colony of them is being faced again, but this one consists of no more than 12 individuals in addition to their Queen, as well as some sort of alien-human hybrid in the end.

** Then ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda3'' cranks it UpToEleven with [[TheAssimilator Kai the Collector]], an absurdly powerful master of chi who completely eclipses the previous villains in scale and threat level. For perspective, [[spoiler: he's the first villain to actually beat Po in a straight fight, [[CurbStompBattle and rather easily at that]].]] Even his minions are more threatening, being EliteMooks formed from other kung fu masters that can go toe-to-toe with most of the cast individually.

* The ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'' series plays this straight for the first three books, and zig-zags it for the rest of the series: Mevolent, the overlord of evil mages who was supposedly the biggest threat the magic world had faced so far, died long before the series began. The villain of the first book, Nefarian Serpine, was just one of his lieutenants, but was also extremely dangerous and managed to get his hands on a source of godlike power. Then came the second of the three lieutenants, Baron Vengeous, who explicitly invokes this trope when Skulduggery claims that if Serpine was a 10/10 [[OnAScaleFromOneToTen on the scale of evil]], Vengeous was [[UpToEleven an 11]]. The third book [[DoubleSubversion Double Subverts]] this by at first setting up the villain as a trio of Mevolent's minor officers [[spoiler:who's leader doesn't even have magic]], but then [[spoiler:the [[EldritchAbomination Faceless Ones]]]], the villains that all the other villains were serving, who are powerful enough to destroy human civilization as easy as stepping on an ant colony, show up. The fourth and fifth books abruptly subvert the Algorithm by putting the heroes up against a gang of minor villains who are out for revenge and a swarm of evil ghosts with DemonicPossession abilities, and then the ''sixth'' book plays it straight by including no less than ''three'' supervillain Necromancers (The Deathbringer, Lord Vile and Darquesse) with the capacity to destroy the world (although the stronger two, Lord Vile and Darquesse, are not interested in that at this point). The seventh book introduces a new God-like mage, who just wants to make the world a better place by giving everyone magic -- even though everyone (including [[spoiler:an alternate version of him]] believes this is a bad idea and the Mortals will use it to kill each other). To make things worse, three mortal teenagers who he gave magic to as an experiment are clear sociopaths, killing people for fun and becoming a serious threat to mages. After they're all defeated, the eighth book introduces a new enemy who has been hinted at since Book 5 -- the magical communities in other worlds, who are so fed up with the Mages in Ireland constantly coming close to letting the apocalypse happen that they've decided to take things into their own hands and are trying to take over -- in other words, the new enemy is normal mages -- hundreds of millions of them. Finally, the ninth book reintroduces Darquesse, who's been occasionally appearing for half the series -- but now she's stronger than ever before. So yeah, the series plays with this trope a lot.

** Season 2 starts off [[AvertedTrope averting]] this with Darth Vader [[CurbStompBattle curb stomping]] all the heroes, their Rebellion cell and undoing all their hard work on Lothal. Then played straight with the heroes facing off first against Imperial characters such as Agent Kallus, then the [[EvilGenius Seventh Sister]] and [[TheBrute Fifth Brother]] are introduced to replace the Inquisitor. The season switches plays with this for several episodes by switching threats, until the finale [[spoiler:re-introduces Maul. Who quickly [[TheWorfEffect kills the the Inquisitors]] and proves much more cunning, aiming the seduce Ezra to the Dark Side and blinding Kanan. Last of all, Darth Vader returns near the end, forcing [[YouShallNotPass Ahoska to hold the line while the others escape]]]].

* Somewhat justified in the ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series. You start out at the fringe of teh Zone with basic weapons and armor (usually because you've had a BagOfSpilling moment when you almost got killed somehow, or you've just come to [[DeathWorld the Zone]]), but you won't be facing anything more dangerous than small pockets of bandits and small-fry mutant wildlife for a while. Granted, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou those are nothing to sneeze at]], but later on they're more of a nuisance (and a chance of getting pistol and shotgun ammo) than a threat, and will only get you killed if you get careless. Moving closer to the center of the Zone, you'll be facing heavily armed and armored troops in large numbers as well as the Zone's most powerful and frightening mutants. [[SortingAlgorithmOfWeaponEffectiveness At least you can adapt your gear accordingly]], [[TheEnemyWeaponsAreBetter thanks in no small part to those heavily armed troops you kill off or find dead, and their map-marked stashes]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' rarely states [[PowerLevels exactly how power any given opponent is]] but it still fulfills this trope in both visual design and the scale of what is at risk. But really, it's hard to deny some level of power scaling is in place when the FinalBoss of ''Endwalker'' [[spoiler:is fought while ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome riding on the back of the]] FinalBoss [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome of Stormblood]]''.]]

*** Season One: Malcolm Merlyn, the Dark Archer, who handed Oliver his ass every time they fought during that season. Later seasons revealed he was just an EliteMook for the series' OverarchingVillain, the League of Assassins. His goal was to destroy the Glades of Star(ling) City in retaliation for his wife's death twenty years prior.

** In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', [[GeniusBruiser Bane]] at first seems to be just a robber who attack the stock market. Very quickly, Bane is shown to be a huge threat, ''especially'' when he defeats Batman and traps him in a prison halfway around the world. After that, Bane forcibly takes over Gotham for months, and is secretly working with [[DaddysLittleVillain Talia al Ghul]]. Both want {{revenge}} for Ra's death, and want it by [[NukeEm nuking Gotham]].

There are several ways to justify this; due to MonsterThreatExpiration, the current villain usually [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind Forgot To Level Grind]] while the heroes are out collecting TwentyBearAsses and are [[TrainingMontage Gonna Fly Now]] thereby outclassing him. This at least provides an in-story [[SophisticatedAsHell explanation]] for the {{Lamarck|WasRight}}ian evolution of evil from one bad guy to the next. In some cases the BigBad the heroes defeated last time was actually a mere member of a powerful organization. The others can show up to avenge their fallen comrade, so now we have the previous big bad times two or more. One of the more realistic possibilities, albeit one that's hard to justify in many stories, is a tournament structure, where the opponents become more formidable the closer the heroes get to the championship. In a series centering around military technology this can be explained by technological progress. The heroes will get new weapons, strategies, and better technology, but so will the enemy. This can apply not just to technology, but also knowledge: if a hero has a rogue's gallery of foes they fight constantly, and a surprise new OutsideContextProblem enters the mix later in the series, they'll be more difficult to handle due to unfamiliarity with how they work. In some cases, particularly the {{Shonen}} genre, it could be that an earlier BigBad who presented a powerful threat is now dead and can no longer grow anymore in power and by the time the heroes face the latest BigBad, the new villain (and subsequently the heroes themselves) will have had that much more time to become stronger that the previous villain. Another example would be that the Big Bad has been defeated but lesser villains are forced to fill the power vacuum by becoming even more evil.

** Series/KamenRiderZeroOne starts out with the Magia, out-of-control robots hacked by a terrorist group. Once all the possible Magia have been dealt with, the terrorists face the Riders themselves, getting captured and [[spoiler: temporarily]] killed respectively. Then TheManBehindTheMan makes his appearance, not only proving himself stronger than anything the heroes currently possess, but bringing with him a set of EvilKnockoff versions of TheLancer.

** Also justified in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' (which is superb at justifying, or at least [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]], standard ''Power Rangers'' tropes) with the assertion that the evil Venjix computer virus is developing increasingly advanced technology over time. The early monsters relied on their quirks as opposed to raw power and strength. That explains why they were at the front.

** Series/KamenRiderZiO has as its MonsterOfTheWeek faction the Another Riders, [[EvilKnockoff corrupted versions of past Riders’ powers given to people who stand for everything the originals stood against]]. The hero can defeat them as long as he uses the same power set as they do. After a while, [[spoiler: the BigBad Schwartz gets GenreSavvy and creates Another Riders that [[LoopholeAbuse can’t have their powers copied by Zi-O,]] forcing him to get a SuperMode to bypass the restriction… [[XanatosGambit which is what Schwartz was hoping for]], intending to raise Zi-O’s powers to a point where he can steal all the Riders’ powers at once and TakeOverTheWorld. After this, [[InvertedTrope he returns to sending out the ones who can be defeated easily]], and when Zi-O gets all the powers he was collecting, Schwartz [[OneWingedAngel becomes an Another Rider of equal power]], and sticks to using [[PsychoRangers previous Dark Riders]] as his minions, since Zi-O’s powers aren’t as curb-stompy against them.]]

* Literaturte/TheCampHalfBloodSeries: ''The Lightning Thief'' (the first book of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'') sets up [[WarGod Ares]] to be the main bad guy, but this is a ruse, because the titan Kronos was behind it all along! The rest of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' is spent trying to stop the ancient titan from coming back and [[TakeOverTheWorld taking over the world]], and they end up doing that. In the SequelSeries ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', the heroes face off against [[GaiasVengeance the primordial Gaia]] and try to stop her from waking up and wiping out mankind, which they succeed in. In the ''other'' Sequel Series ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'', the heroes fight a CorporateConspiracy of immortal Roman emperors called Triumverate Holdings, who turned out to be [[TheManBehindTheMan the financial backers of Kronos and Gaia]].

* {{Justified}} in ''ComicBook/{{Lilith}}'': for every time travel the protagonist does she comes closer to the source of [[TheVirus the Triacanto]], so the [[{{Mooks}} Thistles]] defending the original carriers of the various infection strains are closer to their source (no matter the place in the timeline), going from a few guys unable to properly manifest during the siege of Wilusa to the small army of EliteMooks defending Emin Pasha.

* {{Discussed}} and {{Justified}} in the ''Oppai Dragon'' ShowWithinAShow in ''Fanfic/BeyondTheOuterGateLiesAHighSchoolLibrary'': when Harry suggests that the show's BigBad, "Darkness Knight Fang", be TheMole, Azazel considers it a good plot twist to explain the Sorting Algorithm InUniverse, with "Fang" deliberately throwing increasingly stronger henchmen at Oppai Dragon to train him.

* PlayedStraight (and {{Justified}}) in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''. The first Forsaken are Aginor and Balthamael, who are taken care off quite easily. Be'lal proves a bit of a harder challenge, managing to control Tear for a while and shortly having a few characters captured. With Asmodean, Rand only barely wins the struggle, but Asmodean causes no other problems, while Moghedien is also defeated (though not for good). In book 5, Lanfear nearly manages to control Rand before she is defeated, and Caemlyn has to be freed from Rhavin, and in the next book Rand is captured for a while before freed, though his capturers are, strictly spoken, not evil. In book 7, Rand has to free Illian from Sammael, who did put up something of a battle before he was defeated (albeit rather disappointingly). In Path of Daggers a few bad guys manage to scare Rand into hidiing for the next book, and in book 11 Semirhage nearly manages to kill Rand. In book 12, she nearly does so again and does manage to make him near-totally insane until his epiphany. In book 13, Mesaana is inches away from either enslaving Egwene or managing to get Egwene killed in her sleep (though, to be fair, the assassins weren't hers). In book 14, Graendal nearly destroys the armies of the Light by corrupting their commanders to make small, but eventually fatal mistakes and the problems are only barely in time discovered, with heavy losses incurred. Then, Demandred is very nearly victorious against the forces of Light in the Last Battle before he is killed, leaving his army without head while TheCavalry joins the fight (which would not have been enough to turn the tide had Demandred still lived) and Cyndane is literally an arm's length away from stopping Rand at the crucial moment, which would have resulted in a win for the Dark One.

** The [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks sequel's]] villains, [[EnthrallingSiren The Dazzlings]], however, are extremely old and powerful beings, despite their teenage appearance and [[ImmortalImmaturity occasional temperaments]], who still have access to their magic, which they use via singing to create {{Hate Plague}}s and feed off the conflicts to grow stronger. Their leader, Adagio Dazzle, is essentially an even more {{Jerkass}} version of Sunset with actual threatening powers and a true scheming attitude thrown in for good measure. The final battle between them and the Rainbooms requires not only the aid from another outsider, [[spoiler:Vinyl Scratch]], but also the help of a [[spoiler:[[ReformedButRejected reformed]] [[TheAtoner Sunset Shimmer]], who successfully proves her HeelFaceTurn from the first movie was truly genuine]]. In the end, [[spoiler:they don't pull a HeelFaceTurn but simply run off, now powerless]].