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The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness is in session! And what's this?! The shadowy faces are actually being lit!
Well what do you know? It's the employers of the Equal Opportunity Evil Mooks and the patrons behind the Five Token Band! These people can be any kind of congregation, whether to play poker or plot the downfall of western civilization, but are nonetheless very heterogeneous.
Options include both sexes (but usually just one woman), ethnically, religiously and geographically distinct people, always in the regional chic rather than western business attire. A comedy can even highlight this by using ridiculously cliché or period dress, such as the Mexican delegate dressing like 1910 Bandtio/Revolutionaries, the Russians contingent in full Cossack regalia, or an American in a cowboy suit. If they aren't outlandish/foreign enough, expect them to layer their English with lots of gratuitous phrases or accents.
The one trait that ties everyone together is that they are all in possession of skill, authority or money, and whichever one of these they have, they have excessive amounts of it. The members will probably be heavily accessorized with gaudy jewelry or a scar to prove their moral alignment. In short, the implication is that each and every member has a varied and storied past... which we very likely won't learn.
Related to Gang Of Hats: especially when you're dealing with meetings of heads of groups. Also related to the "How different" aspect of Conservation Of Ninjitsu.
Common councilmen and women include but are not limited to: an Arab Oil Sheikh, a woman in a suit with Power Hair, a Banana Republic presidente, and a " Russian".
Examples
Anime
- Neon Genesis Evangelion had such a council meet with Gendo, and thanks to cheesy lighting-effects, they were even color-coded (Instrumentality Commitee), but then opted to be cooler and more mysterious/ominous by turning into a circle of mysterious "SOUND ONLY" black monoliths (SEELE). Stanley Kubrick was not pleased.
- However, judging from their hooked noses and extensive use of Kabbalistic symbolism, they were all Jews.
- One Piece does this quite a bit, actually.
- The Akatsuki in Naruto, originally just fuzzy, indistinct holograms in a dark cave, are all eventually revealed to have unique appearances (there's one guy with fish-like skin, one who's a living puppet, one with mouths on the palms of his hands, and let's not even get into the Venus flytrap guy), and with only a couple of exceptions all hail from different ninja villages.
Comic Books
- DC Comics has the Quintessence, formed by Zeus, Highfather, Ganthet, the Phantom Stranger and Shazam.
- Considering that Highfather and Shazam are currently dead, Zeus is depowered and Ganthet is interviewing Blue Lanterns...
- It also has The Endless in The Sandman, though they all share the same pasty complexion. (Except Destruction.)
- The comic book Sojourn had an example of this, with a council of Troll governors of conquered territories: They were all Trolls, but each one was dressed in the ethnic garb of the area they governed. There was even a token She-Troll.
- In Runaways, the Pride is the very model of this: six supervillain couples each representing a very different kind of villain (mad scientists, aliens, mutants, etc.)
- Justified by the Gibborim specifically needing these "six young pair bonds" for the rituals needed for their return to power: the magicians (the Minorus, Japanese), the thieves (the Wilders, Black), the travelers (the Yorkes, Jews), the wise men (the Steins, apparemtly WASP s), the colonists (the Deans, Aliens), and the outcasts (the Hayes, Mutants).
- Marvel Comics has a council made up of the heads of all Earth's Pantheons.
- In preparation for the slew of events in 2006-2008, Marvel also retconned in the existence of a Cosmopolitan Council of superheroes called the Illuminati (the name alone raises warning bells): Namor, Blackbolt, Professor Xavier, Doctor Strange, Mr. Fantastic, and Iron Man.
- With Dark Reign there is now the Dark Illuminati. Norman Osborn (Green Goblin), Loki (now female), The Hood, Dr Doom, Emma Frost....and Namor.
Film
- Dr Evil's Evil Panel in Austin Powers is a (very slightly) toned-down version.
- As is the SPECTRE leadership in Thunderball from which Dr. Evil's panel is derived.
- Austin Powers International Man of Mystery: the ambassadors in the United Nations Secret Meetings Room. (Mike Myers even put the Israeli representative next to the Palestinian, which he admitted "didn't change much".)
- The latest James Bond film with Daniel Craig, Casino Royale, had a very important poker game with a diverse set of players.
- Justified, in that it's implied most of them are special agents from various countries trying to break Le Chiffre, and they're all in formal gambling attire.
- In the third Pirates Of The Caribbean film, the Pirates Council: all the greatest pirate captains from nine distinct geographic regions are in it— Caribbean (Jack Sparrow), Indochina (Elizabeth Swann), Japan, northwest Europe, North Africa (Corsairs). This is impressive for its historical accuracy because each of the areas they used were actually known for their large populations of pirates, possibly excepting NW Europe.
- Even more impressive when you note that several of the pirates in the council were based on real life pirates (although they did not all live at the same time, obviously). Mistress Ching, for example, was most likely based on the Chinese pirate Ching Shih.
- The "United World" representatives in Batman The Movie (1966).
- In Zoolander, there is a group of high-profile fashion industry leaders that comprise this role.
- The movie version of The Wild Wild West has a Cosmopolitan Council comprising the South, the Native Americans, the British, the Mexicans and anyone else with a grudge against 1860s America.
- SPECTRE, mainly in the James Bond film series, tended to have multinational representation when they were shown meeting. Their successor, Quantum, in the reboot starting with Casino Royale and revealed in Quantum Of Solace, are even more multinational and composed of men and women.
Literature
- The Senior Council from The Dresden Files has The Merlin (who looks like The Merlin and is British), a Scottish wizard who lives in Missouri (Ebenezar Mc Coy), an small Asian witch (Ancient Mai), an older black witch (Martha Liberty), a hooded Arab wizard (Rashid, the Gatekeeper), an American Indian shaman (Joseph "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Wind) and a French wizard (Aleron La Fortier). They also used to have a Russian wizard (Simon Petrovich).
- The Council of Elrond in The Lord Of The Rings is made up of representatives of all the "free peoples" in that side of the world, including Elves, Dwarves and Humans.
- Just to clarify, the Council of Elrond is in no way a political or even regular commitee of any kind. The people sitting there and debating in LotR have all come to Rivendell on their own or by chance, resulting in a collective infodump/debate.
- In Illuminatus, the Erisian Liberation Front is represented by a council of people in really bizarre costumes, including a cavewoman. (Being Discordians, they might just be playing dress-up for the fun of it.)
- And in subversion, while the Illuminati Primi are for a while implied to follow this trope, in fact apart from one exception they are all siblings.
- The Seven in the Babylon Rising series is made up of two British men (one apparently a Roman Catholic priest), a Spanish man, a communist Chinese general, a German woman, a Romanian woman, and an Indian man.
Live Action TV
- The 4400 had the Marked. First seen in a returnee's a low budget black and white home film (he was prescient/postcognitive, but only expressed it in his films). It included a geisha, a Catholic bishop, a software tycoon, and assorted others.
- A recent (by British standards, I don't know when it aired in America) episode of Dirty Sexy Money has a poker game similar to the one in Casino Royale.
- The System Lords in Stargate SG-1, each choosing to inhabit an ethnically distinct host as well as pattern itself after a god worshipped by an ancient human culture (or to influence a human culture with their style.) Previous councils have included Egyptian, Mesopotamian and even Japanese and Chinese gods.
Video Games
- The evil Cabal from Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising fits this trope to perfection: there's a sinister American radicalist who thinks that "Without control, we may as well end all life on this planet and see if the cockroaches can get it right", a Russian who remembers "de old days", a German chick that wants to "take major urban areas back to the Stone Age", plus an assortment of guys who look like gangsters, ganglords and corrupt politicians.
Western Animation
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire was pretty blatant about this.
- The Simpsons parodies this with the group that gets together to discuss Sideshow Bob's demands to abolish all of television, which included Tom Baker and Steve Urkel
- The Republican Party in Springfield is depicted similarly, consisting of Dr. Hibbert, Rainier Wolfcastle, Count Chocula, Mr. Burns, Krusty, Rich Texan, Birch Barlow (a No Celebrities Were Harmed Rush Limbaugh), and Lindsay Neagle. Mr. Burns greets them by performing an elaborate hand gesture while chanting in Enochian, and Bob Dole reads to them from the Necronomicon.
- In another scene, Mr. Burns calls for advice from his "League of Evil" - a mad scientist, a samurai, a Nazi colonel, a Wild West outlaw, and an Arab warlord with turban and scimitar. Unfortunately, however, they've all been sealed in the space behind his bookcase for decades and all that's left of them is their costumed skeletons.
- Smithers: Even monsters need to breathe sir.
Webcomics
- The Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission in Order Of The Stick is one of these for the three evil outsider races.
Real Life
- Truth In Television: The UN Security Council. There are five permanent members: One American, two Europeans (UK, France), one Eurasian (Russia), one Chinese, and a smattering of ten elected Red Shirts.
- Currently Austria, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Turkey, Uganda, and Vietnam.
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