Contractual Genre Blindness - Television Tropes & Idioms

You're a supervillain. Your efforts are supposed to be foiled by your ambition and hubris. Failure is the surest sign of success.

-The Green Grocer's henchman played by a black pawn, Terror Island theorem #092

182. No figuring out the plot and killing the actual villain five minutes into the adventure.

-1525 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG

Apparently, there is such a thing as being too Genre Savvy. Genre Savvy villains are evil, and they know it. For every complicated villain with abandonment issues that has a chance to redeem themselves, there are ten Card Carrying Villains out there who are just in it because they love being villains.

But what happens when you have a Genre Savvy villain who understands that to be a good villain, you have to be Genre Blind? You're left with a villain stricken with Contractual Genre Blindness. This is the man who captures the hero and uses overly complicated Death Traps, not because it's the smart thing to do, but because it's what a villain is supposed to do.

While usually reserved for a Genre Savvy Card Carrying Villain, this trope does reach out into the realms of the Affably Evil, the Punch Clock Villain, the smarter Harmless Villain, and the Deadpan Snarker who gives up and "plays along."

Slave To PR to the extreme. Villains who say "Screw it" to this policy instead become Dangerously Genre Savvy.

Examples

Anime

Jesse and James expressed this in the early seasons of Pokemon, alongside some Lampshade Hanging:
James: Why didn't we try this before?
Jesse: We had to fill up the half-hour!
The main cast in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya literally fall under this trope because they're trying to maintain the Masquerade when they know that Haruhi is a very Genre Savvy godlike being, and if she expects a trope, that trope will manifest; however, if she knows this, there's a very real risk of her destroying the universe. (Possibly just Earth. The domain of her power is left kind of vague.)
- Its implied her power is universal, as when she desired a visitation of an alien race, said aliens arrived, possibly summoned or even created by her.

Comic Books

The bad guys in Empowered, by Adam Warren, do this as a survival mechanism. Smack around the hero and leave him (her) tied up and escape with the diamonds? Good show, whatever. We'll get you next time! Shoot the hero? Every other hero will be after you.

Film

Dr. Evil from Austin Powers is much the same way, although he never really acknowledges that he is obligated to do these things.
- Doesn't he? He criticizes his son for having read the Evil Overlord List, saying he's not as evil because he's Genre Savvy.

Literature

In the Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum, the old Count de Magpyr explains that for various reasons, it's better for vampires to display stupidity (big open windows, easily breakable furniture) and get killed every so often, than to become tyrants by living forever.
- Evil Harry Dread in The Last Hero is constrained by the Dark Lord Code of Honour, later defined in this Pyramid article.
  - In both of the above cases, Contractual Genre Blindness is a clever survival technique. In the case of the Old Count, he knows that deliberately obeying old stereotypes is much better than subverting them and earning the total emnity of the local villagers, who are actually more capable of killing him once and for all than even they know. Evil Harry Dread's continued "I'll be back" survival also works because he abides by the same rules as the heroes. If they killed Harry once and for all, they would be depriving themselves of a future job. As such, Harry is considered a close friend, even though he is still a bad guy.
  - In Harry and Cohen's case, in typical Pratchett fashion, the Dangerouly Genre Savviness of both sides, resulting in their mutual Contractual Genre Blindness curved right back around to being Dangerously Genre Savvy about Contractual Genre Blindness. When Harry seems genuinely surprised that they were expecting him to betray Cohen's Silver Horde exactly at the culmination of their grand plan, they explain that they expected nothing less from someone like Harry and congratulate him on being one of the best Evil Overlords they had ever encountered. Harry tears up not only from the respect he receives from them, but also the idea that they may be parting ways forever.
- Also, the dragon who became the King of Anhk-Morpork killed, burned, and demanded a virgin to devour, simply because that's what dragons are expected to do. Learning that humans do things just as horrible to one another, having no such Genre-imposed excuse, horrified the creature.
In the novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman, villain Dr. Impossible does many things because that's what villains are supposed to do, but with a lot of realistic consequences Dr. Impossible dons his supervillain costume to impress the C-list villains at a local hangout, gets beat up and thrown out, and has to change out of his costume in nearby bushes before getting on the local Greyhound bus to go home., Soon I Will Be Invincible website
Rare heroic example: in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer insists on breaking Jim out in the most elaborate, difficult way possible because "that's how it's supposed to be done." Given all the trouble this causes, you can tell Mark Twain had gotten sick of Tom Sawyer by the time he wrote Huckleberry Finn.
- To elaborate on how idiotic the breakout plan was: one step of it involved moving a boulder into Jim's cell (don't ask). The two boys aren't strong enough to move it in themselves, so Jim helps them. That's right, Jim walks out of the cell and goes back in voluntarily. And then lets himself be locked back in again. Poor Jim...
The Duke of Ch'in in Bridge Of Birds does this out of fear: tough as he acts, he's still confused and frightened, so he mimics the villains in fairy tales rather than think on his own.

Live Action TV

Particularly applicable to Power Rangers Dino Thunder, where the White Ranger shows up at the same time that another character suddenly starts dressing in white. Somehow, Tommy fails to suggest looking for somebody who has changed his clothing style, in spite of changing his own wardrobe earlier in the series to suit his new position as Black Ranger (and even lampshading this), and his previous experiences as a Power Ranger.
In what may be Truth In Television, the actors in the George Reeves Adventures of Superman show actually said that they never noticed Clark and Superman looked the same because they wanted to keep their jobs.
Pearl in Mystery Science Theater 3000 attempts at first to get acredited by, and then follow the rules of, the Board of Mad Scientists. She is perpetually annoyed at following the mad scientist rules when she knows there are easier ways to do things, but it's "illegal to rule the world if you're not board certified" so she just goes with it.

Tabletop Games

In Exalted arguably most raksha would fit into this although it would be quite posible for them to be wrong about what genre they're in.
- also The Infernal Exalted have Acts of Villainy that they can use to loose limit. These include telling their opponents their evil plan, leaving them in a deathtrap, and forcing people into marriage.

Webcomics

Xykon from Order of the Stick, though he's actually not so stupid. He is also very lazy.
- Not to mention Nale. He truly is Elan's equal and opposite, isn't he?
- Oh, Nale's clever enough. He just gets continually bit in the rear by the fact that he thinks he's Magnificent Bastard material, which just isn't the case.
Lord Milligan in Casey And Andy is textbook evil, with many jokes and Lampshade Hangings on it. When asked about the benefits, he points out the ability to use the Standard Female Grab Area.
Everyone in Narbonic. As a Mad Scientist you act in a given manner, even though you KNOW it's going to bite you in the tush, precisely because of the insanity.
As evidenced by the title text, The Green Grocer's henchmen in Terror Island, who mostly give said Card Carrying Villain advice in how to be a villain.
General Gray, the villain of Issue 5 of Jump Leads. He already ''has'' taken over the world once, but found actually running the world pretty boring, so he abdicated. But he still loves trying to take over the world. So for the past thirty years he's been coming up with outlandish, easily thwartable (and increasing ill-defined) world domination plans.
Dr. Steve from Sluggy Freelance, though some of that may just be him being completely, batshit insane.

Western Animation

Señor Senior Sr. from Kim Possible is a paticularly Genre Savvy old man who took up supervillainy as a hobby and has since adhered to Contractual Genre Blindness.
- In fact, it's a tradition followed both by the villains and the heroes.
- So much so that the characters get upset when one villain refuses to follow the rules.
- To be fair, he merely considers it to be good form.
In The Venture Brothers, most supervillains are members of the Guild of Calamitous Intent — a Weird Trade Union whose bylaws obligate them to behave in this manner.
- Specifically, it's suggested that the Guild enforces this as a protection measure for both their members and for society at large. An episode where Jonas Jr does not play along has Brock Samson warning him that a psycho with a private army, flying machines and so forth needs to be indulged if only to keep him away from committing real crimes.
- During one instant, Baron Undherbeit and The Monarch are both trying to kill Dr. Venture at the same time. After coming to an agreement to combine their forces, Undherbeit asks if they should run the decision by the Guild first. After a brief pause, they both laugh at the suggestion and decide to 'screw protocol'. However, by the time they have finally decided upon this, all of their henchmen have been massacred by one of Venture's specially built robots.
Jack Spicer of Xiaolin Showdown.
Dr. Doofenschmirtz of Phineas And Ferb.