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Curse you, British Pound! I'll get you yet!
"Somehow, I feel comfortable here."
Pretty much Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
In Ye Olden Times, they called it a throne and there's usually a King in it. Or a princess, for some reason which escapes me at the moment. Or sometimes, some dude named Orcus.
More modern versions can include buttons on the armrest, which can help The Captain take a memo if any Bridge Bunnies aren't around. Alternatively, The Big Bad will have one of these (in black leather, natch) and any built-in controls will probably have to do with the tidy disposal of underlings.
Other fiendish uses for the Cool Chair Couch Of Villainy ( muah-ha-ha!) include practicing your Slouch Of Villainy, and naturally, the Chair Reveal.
Villains and roguish heroes of the Middle Eastern persuasion will often be surrounded by scantily-clad women fanning him and feeding him grapes.
Cool Chairs will always be thematically appropriate. You will never find Lord Azazel the Befouler brooding atop his dread throne of plush cushions, and conversely you'll will never see Captain Jake McHero reclining on a seat made of iron spikes and human tibias.
A subtrope of this is the Hovering Cool Chair, often found in video games and more fantastic works of fiction. Hovering CoolChairs are also sometimes weaponized - machine guns, rockets, and lasers pop out of it to attack the villain's enemies. This may serve as a way to introduce a Boss Battle with a mastermind-type villain without resorting to Authority Equals Asskicking.
Also, on occasion, the chair may serve as an escape pod for the villain to make his getaway.
Examples:
- Villains with a preference for high technology (and occasionally heroes, too) often use a hovering Cool Chair, which can move them around their screen-covered command-center without the inconvenience of getting up and walking. I recall an episode of the old Spider Man animated series, when J. Jonah Jameson is 'invited' up to SHIELD's Helicarrier, and we get the Chair Reveal on Nick 'The Pirate' Fury. He's sitting in some sort of awesome, electric, hovering chair. Just to underline the "These guys have loads of cool stuff" point, I guess.
- Metron from DC has another hovering Cool Chair.
- Rygel used a hovering throne-sled in Far Scape.
- In the second Artemis Fowl book, Opal Koboi had a hovering chair.
- The Riddler's throne from Batman Forever might be a subversion of this.
- Dr Robotnik has various incarnations of his signature Eggmobiles, which manage a trifecta of Cool Chair, cockpit of sundry Boss Battling machines, and omnivehicle escape pod. So enamored is he with his flying chair that it's rare to see him actually standing.
- Star Wars is full of them.
- The Jedi Council hold their meetings in a tower, where each member gets a nice looking chair that you could almost swear was built specifically for them. Sometimes, when some of the members are away, they even fill their chairs via hologram communication.
- And sometimes Yoda even uses a hover-chair.
- And let us not forget the Emperors cool chair while we're at it.
- In Episode I, we get a scene of Viceroy Gunray on a "mechno-throne", a cool chair that walks around on four legs.
- Also in Episode I, Darth Sidious uses the "mechno-throne" as a hologram projector. Let me recap: he is sitting on a throne that walks around on its own power. And he is a hologram at the time. Is Evil cool or what?
- "...One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne // In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie..." Subverted somewhat in that Sauron is never seen on his throne. Doubly so in The Movie, where Sauron is portrayed as a giant, Faceless Eye made out of fire, making a Cool Chair fairly useless. You know, what with him not having a butt and everything.
- Let's not forget the Steward of Gondor's seat, a plain black chair below and to one side of the (permanently unoccupied) throne.
- Those egg chairs from Men In Black may be a subversion of this. They LOOK cool, but undoubtedly are horribly uncomfortable.
- Of course, that was the point-the written exam was just a Red Herring, the real test was to see which, if any, of their candidates realized that they were in a situation which was singularly unsuited to writing properly, and noticed that there was a useful flat surface in the middle of the room.
- The real test was to see which, if any, of the candidates would think outside the box and figure out to USE the flat surface in the first place, even if it made that horrible screeching noise.
- Number 2's chair in The Prisoner. The desk it faced had several phones and a set of controls.
- The Captain's chairs on The Bridge in the Star Trek series and movies, starting with Captain Kirk's.
- Color Coded For Your Convenience, as well, considering a Federation chair is done in soothing shades of beige, whereas Klingon furniture is all made from black leather and bolted-together slabs of iron.
- A delicious source of Narm in Star Trek: Insurrection, where the Big Bad's Cool Chair is a literal Couch Of Villainy. A big comfy red one. On a ultra-high-tech, stainless-steel Bridge. It really doesn't work, as seen here. I still want one for my living room, though.
- It might've been entertainingly decadent if he sprawled on that thing like a Roman senator taking his ease.
- In one episode of Star Trek Enterprise Trip designs the Ultimate Captain's Chair with interactive status displays, secondary helm control, inertial micro-dampers and cup holder (but apparently No Seat Belts).
"I know you don't think this chair is important, but you're wrong. What's the most critical component on this ship? The main computer? The warp reactor? Uh-uh, it's the crew. And the most important member of the crew is the Captain. He makes life and death decisions every day and the last thing he needs to be thinking in a critical situation is, 'Gee, I wish this chair wasn't such a pain in the ass.'"
- In Isaac Asimov's Foundation story "Bridle and Saddle" (AKA "The Mayors"), a ruler had a glowing chair that could float due to its shielded nuclear motor.
- In Dune, the Emperor's throne was a "massive chair carved from a single piece of Hagal quartz". In Dune Messiah this is changed to "Hagar emerald" (probably a typo).
- The aborted 1975 film version of Dune would have used This chair◊, designed by H.R. Giger of Alien fame.
- Eeep.
- It looks like the kind of chair Dr. Claw might sit in.
- This troper has a picture of her mom standing beside a similar Giger-designed chair◊ from when she visited a gallery in Soho with her (the troper's) aunt. Thanks Mom!
- Professor Farnesworth from Futurama pilots a flying, armed Laz-E-Boy when they are pushed back to 1940's Roswell.
- Savah's chair in Elf Quest has a cool psychic light display behind it, but it's not nearly as ostentatious as Lord Voll's (later Winnowill's) throne.
- Dist has a cool flying chair.
- Dr. Horrible has a big, giant overstuffed chair in his laboratory. It's a bit too gaudy to be a proper Evil Overlord chair, which makes it probably an Affectionate Parody. Plus, meta-wise, the chair belonged to the person in whose home they filmed the Billy shots. "The chair really is that big," Whedon was qutoed as saying. "We did not bring a chair increaser."
- The Major from Hellsing has a cool chair that is on an elevated platform in the zeppelin. It hides a suprise weapon too.
- Wild Wild West (1999) movie. Dr. Loveless' wheelchair had a built-in gun and could turn into a 4-legged mini-mecha.
- Real Life example (well sort of?) - the Diary Room chair on Big Brother.
- Another Real Life example: Thrones. Duh.
- On Friends, Rachel buys a new armchair. It's really, really nice. So nice, in fact, that Joey deliberately breaks his leather Barcalounger in a desperate attempt to be allowed to sit in it. Twice (long story...).
- We never see her sit in it, but Azala in Chrono Trigger has a throne made of bones in Tyranno Palace. Choosing to sit in it causes the character doing so to give an Evil Laugh.
- While Franken Stein's rolling desk chair may look mundane, a frightfull power is contained within.
- Professor X once had a high-tech hovering chair given to him by the Shi'ar.
- And Whiz Kid can turn any object of sufficient mass into any device he can imagine. His wheelchair being the closest thing at hand, it's been turned into a rocket-powered one-man tank on several occasions. Sadly, he's among the C List Fodder to be depowered at the end of House Of M.
- Parodied on The Simpsons, where Mr. Burns offers to use his influence to get Homer into college to actually get his nuclear physics degree, saying "I have a chair on the admissions board of Springfield University". His "chair" turns out to be a giant throne with devils carved into it, skulls for the handrests, and two attack dogs chained to it.
- How can we not mention Stephen Hawking's wheelchair from the same show? It could fly and was loaded with more tools than Inspector Gadget.
- Some Castlevania games have a sidequest centered around finding and sitting in Cool Chairs.
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has a soul you can collect which, when equipped, will regenerate health at a fairly generous rate whenever you're sitting down-be it in a Cool Chair, a few boards and dowels barely held together with glue, or a crate.
- William Albacastle / Willy Pete, authorial character of the White Wolf Mage The Ascension supplement Iteration X and a major character in the novel Judgement Day by Bruce Baugh has a damn cool chair. The fact he's a technophillic quadrapalegic who uses waldoes to build telepresence drones and whose motorized wheelchair houses treads, robotic arms, and Hades knows what else gives him a good excuse to have one.
- The Ancient control chair (aka Recliner of Doom) in Stargate Atlantis.
- Evil Genius Belphegor - at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe - has an armed, hovering Cool Chair that he never seems to get out of. Which goes with the original Belphegor being a demon of sloth, among other nasty things.
- The Inspirationally Disadvantaged Felix Renton from Kim Possible has a wheelchair with a hover system and retractable Combat Tentacles. It was built by his mother, a cybertechnology expert who moved into town to work at the space center with Kim's father. In his second appearance, the bad guys steal it, causing Shego to remark that Even Evil Has Standards.
- In the first Chronicles of Narnia film, the White Witch's throne of ice was a Cool Chair — literally.
- Also, the four thrones at Cair Paravel toward the end of the film.
- Nero Wolfe has a chair that has been modified and reinforced (under his own supervision of course) in order to support his great bulk.
- SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! The Emperor's Golden Throne might count too, despite the fact that it's not so much a chair, than an elaborate life support device the size of a large building. Apparently the part where the Emperor's body lies does look somewhat like a throne, though.
- The Frozen Throne of the Lich King in Warcraft games. There's also a place called the Throne of Kil'Jaeden, but it's not an actual throne. Whether the Legionlord has an actual Cool Chair remains to be seen. This troper believes he does as no self-respecting demon lord would go without an obsidian throne covered in skulls and spikes.
- In Halo the prophets glide on hover chairs, that have Deflector Shields and can shoot lasers. Normally Master Chief vs. an old man wouldn't be much of a fight, so it's a good thing the Cool Chair fixes that.
- The Iron Throne of Aegon the Conqueror in A Song Of Ice And Fire is Cool But Inefficient. It's made out of the swords of all the lords Aegon defeated in his conquest of Westeros, and so is covered in blades and spiky bits.
- Parodied in the Austin Powers series, where Dr.Evil's Cool Chair keeps malfuntioning, or he just doesn't know how to work it.
- Somewhat subverted in a series of short young-adult novellas written by Jim Davis, starring Garfield, Odie, Nermal, Arlene, and Pooky being sucked into the universe of a comic book starring characters conveniently similar to them. The planet they end up on is a monarchy, and the king is...Jon Arbuckle. Since being royalty can do little to change the fact that he's still fundamentally Jon, he's had the traditional throne replaced with a recliner upholstered in naugahyde, chosen on the basis that stains wipe right off.
- The series is called Garfield's PET FORCE.
- Doctor Doom is seen briefly in Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer sitting in a rotating chair with LCD screens on its armrests in a room where the walls are covered with larger monitors. Shame so little of it was shown as this troper thought it looked rather cool.
- England tries to trick America into sitting on the "Infamous 'Sit and You Die' Busby Stoop Chair. Its evil doesn't stand a chance against Russia's, though, so it's not as cool as it could be.
- Let's not forget Baltar's infamous swivelling chair in the original Battlestar Galactica. Though how he got up there in the first place is beyond me.
- Dr Evil's chairs in all three Austin Powers movies invariably malfunction.
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