Most cultures around the world consider a strong work ethic an important virtue; by that same token, a lack of work ethic is considered a sign of bad character. As a result of this, one of the ways that fiction differentiates heroes from villains is by their work ethic. This can manifest itself in a number of ways:
- When it comes to talent, one popular approach is to make the protagonist an untalented nobody who has to work to improve themself while the antagonist has a large amount of natural talent, but doesn't bother improving themself. Expect the story to have the hero start off weaker than the villain only to end up surpassing them due to the villain's lack of diligence.
- In a story involving superpowers, the villain might have an extremely useful power that they don't bother practicing, causing them to become Unskilled, but Strong, while the hero has a weak or average power that they are Weak, but Skilled with as a result of diligence.
- In a school setting, the hero will be a diligent student who studies hard to get good grades and plans for their future, while the villain simply bullies other people into doing their homework for them or relies on their family's wealth, while not putting much effort into planning their future.
- In a workplace setting, the villain might be a slacker who tries to get ahead by seducing the higher-ups, blackmail, nepotism, connections, or manipulating others into doing their work for them. By contrast, the hero will have no problem with working their butt off to get ahead. These stories commonly start off with the hero being in a lower position than villain, only for the villain's misdeeds to be exposed, causing them to either be fired or be demoted, while the hero ends up being promoted; bonus points if the hero also becomes the villain's new boss.
- If the hero and villain hold a position of power, expect the hero to treat the position as an important responsibility, while the villain exploits the perks of their position while neglecting their duties.
- A romance story might do this by applying this trope to the Romantic False Lead and Second Love; stories that use this variation will often have the false lead dump the hero when the relationship becomes too difficult or when an opportunity for an easier life comes by; meanwhile, their true love will stay faithful through thick and thin. If the old lover tries to come back, they will have no problem shamefully begging to get back together when it's convenient for them, only to be put in their place by the new lover.
- Another romantic variation involves a Love Triangle where the hero is willing to put in the work to earn and win over their Love Interest's affections, while the villain believes that they are entitled to the Love Interest's affections.
- When it comes to teamwork, the hero will do all they can to contribute to their team, while the villain prefers to force and/or manipulate their others into doing all of the work while sitting back and leeching off the benefits. Alternatively, the way they treat people might also show their character; the hero might prefer to earn people's love and popularity, while the villain expects others to hand it to them. In addition, the hero will will gladly stick by their friends during times of hardship, while the villain has no problem abandoning their "friends" when the going gets tough.
- When it comes to attaining a goal of some kind, the heroes will have no problem diligently working themselves to the bone to eventually reach success and will be disgusted by cheating and shortcuts. Meanwhile, the villain will either be very ambitious but unwilling to apply themselves or simply prefer to take shortcuts because Evil Is Easy.
Some stories might explain the hero and villain's work ethic as a result of their backstories; the hero may have had very little advantages in life, which forced them to apply themselves, while the villain's laziness is the result of some form of privilege or advantage, such as good looks, wealth, connections etc. that they relied on to get other people to work for them. It can also be a result of how they were raised, with the hero's parents raising them to work hard and be responsible, while the villain's parents handed them everything, causing them to become lazy.
See also Seven Heavenly Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins, which this trope's title references.
Compare Childish Villain, Mature Hero, Insecure Protagonist, Arrogant Antagonist, Evil Is Easy, Privilege Makes You Evil, and Misery Builds Character, which often overlaps with this trope. For tropes often expressed by a Diligent Hero, see Determinator, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, and Self-Made Man. For tropes often expressed by a Slothful Villain, see Lazy Bum; Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!, Spoiled Brat, Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!, Entitled Bastard, Orcus on His Throne, Ambitious, but Lazy, All Take and No Give, and Beauty Breeds Laziness.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Z: This is the reason for Frieza's defeat at the hands of Goku. Goku is a martial artist who has dedicated his life to constantly improving his fighting skills and finding new challenges. Frieza was Born Lucky and barely put any effort into training because his power was always enough for him to best any opponent until he met Goku. Later, during the events of Resurrection F and its corresponding act in Super, Frieza actually puts some time to actually train and can match Goku after a decade of further training and several new forms, but rushes the process, leaving himself unable to pace himself and leading to his defeat once more. Only later, when he's forced to be patient, does he truly master his powers and as a result is a major contributing factor to Universe 7's victory at the Tournament of Power.
- Muhyo and Roji inverts this. Muhyo, the protagonist, is Brilliant, but Lazy, but when he and his friend Enchu were studying for an Executor position, Enchu desperately pushed himself hard in order to succeed. Enchu failing to get the position, as well as losing his mother at the same time, caused him to snap and do a Face–Heel Turn.
Comic Books
- The Silver Age of Comic Books hero Jack Q. Frost from Harvey Comics is a top agent in the International Counter-Intelligence Agency (or ICA). His nemesis, Lord Lazee, is a massively overweight crime boss who never leaves his high-tech chair, relying heavily upon his robot army to do all his crimes for him.
Fan Works
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse has Chloe alternate between both sides:
- Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus sees her as the diligent hero busting her ass off to protect the denizens fo the Train, building her skills from the bottom up with nothing but a donut holer and a fire casting cloak to her name, along with producing videos, photos, and stage productions that rally hope against the darkness. By contrast, Sarah manipulates their classmates into bullying Chloe into giving everyone Pokémon, as Sarah can't be bothered to actually walk all the way to Professor Cerise's Institute to pick one out for herself.
- Alternatively, Chloe is more of a slothful Anti-Hero in the original Blossoming Trail and spinoffs like Shield of Vermillion, having stewed in her own misery while doing nothing to try and improve her lot in life. By contrast, Ash and Goh actively pursued their dreams as she watched enviously. It took being picked up by the Infinity Train and a long journey of self-discovery before she acknowledged just how unfair her judgment of others was.
- Played With in The Karma of Lies:
- One of Adrien's biggest Fatal Flaws is how he clings to his belief that he doesn't have to do anything to earn his happy ending. After all, he was chosen to be Chat Noir; that means he's The Hero and everything he does is right by default, right? He repeatedly rejects any and all warnings or suggestions that he might need to do anything heroic or otherwise prove himself. He even skips what turns out to be the Final Battle with Hawkmoth, telling himself that Ladybug can handle it by herself, and gradually turns public opinion against himself by insisting he should be rewarded for his service as Chat Noir despite how he refused to take his heroic responsibilities seriously.
- Marinette, by contrast, is The Reliable One and the truly Diligent Hero, who earns a Karmic Jackpot by working with her True Companions to lure Hawkmoth out of hiding and put a stop to his reign of terror.
- Lila plays with this by being a Diligent Villain, setting her up as a solid Foil to Adrien. She's a Con Artist who works hard at scamming her victims, figuring out what they want most and using that to lure them into her traps. She even snares Adrien by telling himself exactly what he wants to hear, pretending that his "do nothing" approach taught her the error of her ways.
- Out of all their classmates, only Chloé, Juleka and Rose are able to redeem themselves and earn their own happy endings by virtue of recognizing their mistakes and working to better themselves. By contrast, Alya, Nino and the rest of Ms. Bustier's students expect to be Easily Forgiven for their fickle "friendship", trying to cozy back up to Marinette after learning that she's more than their "everyday Ladybug". Alya is especially outspoken about all the things she believes Marinette owes her, and the only thing they put any effort into is trying to go over Marinette's head and convince her parents to make her forgive them and go back to their All Take and No Give "friendship".
- The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral) makes this the core of Chloé's Lament, which sets Chloé up as a Slothful Villain Protagonist against Marinette's Diligent Hero Antagonist:
- Chloé's Irrational Hatred of Marinette stems from her resenting the notion that "a mere baker's daughter" has wound up Loved by All as both a civilian and a superheroine, while she's Hated by All despite how her father is the Mayor of Paris. Her inability to grasp that their respective reputations stem from their personalities rather than status spurs her to make a reality-altering Wish.
- Upon discovering that they've swapped lives, Chloé immediately assumes that she'll receive the Ladybug Earrings and all of the popularity Marinette originally enjoyed by default, without having to do anything to earn it. As a result, she fails Master Fu's Secret Test of Character without ever realizing it. Meanwhile, Marinette is still beloved in the new universe due to how she's Spoiled Sweet and doesn't abuse her wealth and connections the way Chloé did.
- Chloé has a full-fledged Villainous Breakdown when one of her plans to ruin Marinette's reputation fails thanks to Marinette refusing to enter the Hat-Making Contest. Since she's closer to the Agrestes here, Marinette doesn't want to do anything that might even be mistaken for abusing her connections; as Chloé did nothing but exploit her father's status for her own gain in the original world, she's completely unable to fathom why Marinette wouldn't do the same thing.
- The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: Danny and his dates are all diligent in both their futures and their relationships, unlike the various bullies and Alpha Bitches who are more prone to slack off.
- Danny and his dates take their futures seriously, are willing to study diligently to obtain and maintain good grades, and have dreams that they are willing to strive for; as a result, they always have good futures due to their willingness to make something of themselves. Meanwhile, the bullies don't take their futures seriously, often bullying others into doing their homework, being content peaking in high school, and trying to find easy ways to obtain money like marrying or dating rich people; as a result, they end up growing into failures as they never bothered trying to improve themselves
- In terms of relationships, Danny and his dates end up having fulfilling relationships because they put effort into getting to know their dates as people; meanwhile, the bullies' relationships tend to be miserable as they were shallow people who had no positive qualities other than their looks, wealth, and status as jocks or cheerleaders, which mattered little in the adult world as most adults don't care about high school status, especially in regards to their future partners.
Films — Animated
- The Lion King (1994): The Pride Lands are prosperous under Mufasa and Simba's rule, mainly due to their diligence and understanding that being a king carries a lot of responsibilities. During Scar's reign, the Pride Lands turned from a lush savanna to a barren wasteland because Scar was extremely negligent in doing his duties as king and allowed the hyenas to run amok.
- NIMONA (2023): Sir Ballister Boldheart is a serious, mature and hard-working professional who earned knighthood despite the Institute's Absurdly Exclusive Recruiting Standards. His rival throughout the film, Sir Thoddeus "Todd" Sureblade, is a classist Manchild recruited from the noble families, and thanks to this privileged background, he's both physically and intellectually lazy. Among other things, Todd prefers to trade immature quips and showboat instead of treating his job seriously, takes Nimona's bait and disparages Ambrosius for being more diligent in reviewing security footage, only achieves a brief victory against the heroes by ganging up on them, and unlike both Ballister and Ambrosius, proudly refuses to learn anything.
- From the film adaptation of Paprika:
- Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a devoted scientist with seemingly no time for herself or her emotions, to the point that she can only express her true exuberance and compassion as Paprika, a renegade psychiatrist who risks all manner of unknown dangers in her journeys into the minds of her patients. Meanwhile, the Big Bad Chairman Seijirou Inui remains hidden away in his mansion, allowing the minions he's bribed or duped to act in his stead while he gleefully exploits the power of the stolen DC Mini. For good measure, his Dream Weaver technique is the epitome of Unskilled, but Strong.
- Dr. Kousaku Tokito is a brilliant scientist responsible for inventing the DC Mini, and though he's undoubtedly an Absent-Minded Professor, he's always ready to work hard to help others — from tinkering in his lab to helping Atsuko pick the lock on Himuro's door. By contrast, The Dragon Dr. Morio Osanai is a scummy careerist who's trying to claw his way to a promotion through toadying and corporate sabotage rather than hard work, to the point that Paprika intuits that he slept with Himuro in order to get his hands on the DC Mini.
Films — Live-Action
- Back to the Future: George and Biff have had this dynamic ever since high school, where Biff would force the studious George to do his homework while he goofed off. In the original present, where Biff is George's supervisor, Biff managed to climb the ranks by forcing George to do his work. In the second timeline, where the once wimpy George manages to stand up to Biff, George manages to become a successful author as a result of his own hard work, while Biff isn't as successful as he was in the original future as he can't rely on George to do his work. In the Bad Future where Biff takes over, he only became as rich as he was because his future self gave him an almanac containing the results of future sports games, which he bet on to make himself rich rather than any kind of actual work.
- Glass Onion: Benoit Blanc is a brilliant detective who falls to pieces without a case to solve and is first encountered deeply bored with playing games of Among Us while in lockdown. The Big Bad of the story is Miles Bron, a smug, vacuous, unimaginative Tech Bro who takes great delight in being regarded as a Self-Made Man and a genius even though he owes his success entirely to shameless credit-theft: the company that made him his fortune was effectively stolen from his partner, his innovations were either developed by someone else or half-assed bullshit he conjured up on a whim, his murder mystery and the puzzle boxes used for it were all commissioned, and his greatest work — the miracle fuel Klear — has been rushed through testing despite being volatile to the point of insanity. The murders he commits are so lazily thought-out they're virtually spur-of-the-moment, and Bron even resorts to stealing ideas from Benoit himself in a fantastically slothful attempt to save his own ass. As such, unlike the main villain of the previous film — who was at least Brilliant, but Lazy and could play a good game of Xanatos Speed Chess — this particular bad guy stands out as someone the hard-working Benoit Blanc utterly despises.
- Iron Man: This is one of the things (beside their feelings about murder and terrorism) that distinguishes Tony Stark from Obadiah Stane. Tony built his Iron Man suits himself, with painstaking work and research over several scenes and montages. In contrast, Obadiah steals Tony's technology to build the Iron Monger suit, doesn't do the work himself, berates and belittles his employees who make the suit for him, and rushes it into use when it's not properly tested. This culminates in a satisfyingly symbolic fashion when they fight in the upper atmosphere, and the Iron Monger suit freezes over due to the "icing problem" that Tony's hard work had already solved for his suit.
Literature
- A famous example from Aesop's Fables with the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. The two animals agree to compete in a footrace, and the hare is so confident that he'll win that he arrogantly decides to take a nap just a few feet from the finish line. The tortoise, however, takes the competition a lot more seriously and continues plodding along while the hare sleeps, ultimately proving that "slow and steady wins the race". While not quite a villain, the hare is certainly presented as an Anti-Role Model, and he has no one to blame for his loss but his own hubris.
- Downplayed in Disciple of the Holy Sword. Leon is incredibly hard-working but suffers from Hard Work Hardly Works until Elsyd chooses him to become the next Warrior. Leon's rival, Lionel, is much more talented than Leon. While Lionel does work hard, he's so praised for his skills that he parties with his peers instead of spending all of his time training alone like Leon. Leon's first goal in the story is to surpass Lionel, with their final duel at the academy ending with Leon shattering Lionel's sword, as Leon had broken so many training swords that he understood how much punishment a sword could take whereas Lionel did not.
- The Magicians: The Beast is a Humanoid Abomination possessed of incredible power but is also a Psychopathic Manchild with no discipline, lazily ruling over Fillory from the shadows and only stirring when something gets his attention. By contrast, the Physical Kids are Work Hard, Play Hard magicians who have undergone years of study plus a year-long Training from Hell to master their powers and tend to go to pieces without a challenge to keep them occupied. Once they've gotten their act together, the Weak, but Skilled Physical Kids are able to get the Unskilled, but Strong Beast on the ropes for the first time in the entire story.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero:
- Naofumi and Malty: When it comes to their duties, Malty is a Spoiled Brat who focuses more on hedonistic thrills and scheming her way into easy money and power while avoiding any responsibility; Naofumi is a hardworking underdog who is diligent in his duties as the Shield Hero and thus becomes more competent and skilled during his journey. While Malty is a useless, disloyal parasite who leeches off of her allies and disposes of them when she deems them useless, Naofumi actually contributes to his team, even when he does have to rely on them. Part of the reason Malty becomes less of a threat to Naofumi overtime is because she's too lazy to train and improve her skills and abilities and prefers to rely on attack dogs like Motoyasu to do all the fighting for her. By Cal Mira, she's so far behind Naofumi, that the latter can deflect her attacks easily.
- Naofumi and the Three Heroes: While the latter technically aren't villains, this dynamic fits them nevertheless. The Three Heroes tend to rely on the RPG experience while Naofumi takes the time to learn how the world works. Motoyasu in particular tends to flirt with women over actually training, while Itsuki focuses more on showboating. Since the heroes never bother to actually train their skills and instead rely on their own strengthening methods, they end up falling behind Naofumi as fighters and heroes. It takes a huge Break the Haughty moment for all three of them to finally break out of this mindset and start taking their duties seriously.
- Malty and Melty combine this trope with Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling; everything Malty was mentioned as being above, Melty is not. Melty is diligent in her duties as princess, contributes to her party and kingdom, and returns loyalty to those who show it to her. Because of this, their mother makes Melty the heir rather than Malty.
Live-Action TV
- Avataro Sentai Donbrothers: Both The Donbrothers and The Noto Layer are working hard to secure the lives of those that mutate into Hitotsu-Ki, for peace and pride respectively. The Juto meanwhile spend 85% of the show sitting on their laurels, coasting on the sheer power gap between them and the heroes. The Cat Juto wear "immature, childish hedonism" as their hat. Miho is the only Juto that's an active detriment to the heroes and that's moreso indirectly; what little scheming she does relies exclusively on the instabilities and issues of Tsuyoshi and Tsubasa doing the work for her. Finally, The Penguin Juto reveals itself near the show's end and it's not the Final Boss that requires every faction to put differences aside; it's a relaxed Affably Evil Hero Antagonist that spends more time trying to curry physical care from Taro and Tsubasa rather than really trying to stop them — Taro quashes its sole agenda almost immediately and it barely takes action; content to watch things unfold with minimal input.
- Farscape:
- The crew of Moya are a desperate gang of fugitives who spend most of their time struggling to stay alive and can only improvise fun when they can find the time to do anything other than work. In particular, series protagonist John Crichton spends most of his off-hours on increasingly dangerous wormhole research. By contrast, early antagonist Maldis is a seemingly all-powerful Emotion Eater who prefers to watch his sadistic games play out rather than get involved, only using his powers in the event that his playthings need some encouragement. In their first encounter, his chosen playthings were already mortal enemies and only needed a bit of a prod to fight to the death, and he got so carried away with the fun that Maldis completely failed to notice that Zhaan was learning how to harness her own powers against him — hence his first defeat.
- In season four, the crew of Moya are pitted against a new antagonist, Commandant Grayza. Her heppel oil glands give her the power to chemically enslave people, allowing her to accomplish her goals with as little effort as possible... but unfortunately, this power makes her complacent — allowing Crichton to deliver a humiliating defeat when he finds an antidote to the oil. She spends the rest of the season as a strictly hands-off Big Bad, using Captain Braca as her Puppet King while she takes baths or plays head games with her underlings. Even her big plan to trick the Scarran Imperium into a truce involves her taking credit for the wormhole weapon Crichton developed back in season 3 without taking any measures of her own. This bites her hard in the ass when Scarran War Minister Akhna sees through Grayza's bluster and easily defeats her underpowered forces. When Grayza attempts to save face by ordering a Suicide Attack on Katratzi, Braca refuses her orders and has her arrested. For good measure, Scorpius — who has been patiently working away on Moya all season — claims Grayza's command carrier as his own.
- Jessica Jones (2015): Alcoholic and self-destructive though she may be, once Jessica Jones has a mission, she's determined to pursue it even if it means devoting huge swathes of her time, pushing her super-strength to the limit, or putting herself at serious risk — even personally retrieving a body from the bottom of Manhattan harbour in an attempt to clear Hope Schlottman's name. Kilgrave, the Big Bad of season one, is a Psychopathic Manchild with a Compelling Voice that allows him to control just about anyone and exploits it in order to live a life of endless self-indulgence while his brainwashed minions do literally everything for him. Jessica escaped his control after spending months as his Sex Slave and bodyguard, but Kilgrave still feels entitled to her and forces her to return to him through a mixture of emotional manipulation and shameless hostage-taking.
- LazyTown: Sportacus is an energetic Lovable Jock as well as the town superhero who encourages everyone to stay fit. On the other hand, his foil Robbie Rotten (as well as the main antagonist) tries to get people to be lazy. Ironically, he works very hard in his attempts to make the townspeople less active.
- Downplayed in Odd Squad with Olive and Otto and Oren and Olaf. Oren and Olaf are certainly not a part of Odd Squad's extensive Rogues Gallery and are more Sitcom Arch-Nemeses than anything else, but both tend to cut corners on work and are far lazier compared to Olive and Otto, who are more hardworking. And while Oren in particular has dreams of succeeding Oprah as Director of Precinct 13579, Olive is the one who ends up becoming a Director instead, albeit in a different precinct.
- Zig-zagged in Red Dwarf: David Lister and Arnold Rimmer initially appear to be inversions, in that Lister's a slobby but morally upstanding space bum with no overriding goal other than to get back to Earth and have a good time, while Rimmer is a rigid work-obsessed disciplinarian who frequently strays into outright villainous behaviour (especially in episodes like "Meltdown" and "Back In The Red"). However, Rimmer is also shown to be a dedicated anal retentive who wastes time on things that only qualify as work to him, would rather cheat his way up the ranks than earn his success, and (in the novels) fails his exams due to procrastinating on study right up to the last day before the exam. By contrast, Lister can be surprisingly diligent when it comes to important things like repairs and maintenance, to the point that during the events of Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, he sets off on a self-imposed mission to mine rare minerals and ends up being the only member of the crew to devote any real effort to it.
Mythology & Religion
- Implied in The Bible. When the brothers Cain and Abel (a farmer and a shepherd, respectively) have to make sacrifices to God, He is happy with Abel's offering, but not Cain's. In one version of the story, it is because Cain carelessly gives a few crops from his harvest without much thought, but Abel takes great care to give only the best pieces of meat from his sheep. In any case, Cain is jealous that his offering is not accepted, and kills Abel with a rock.
Video Games
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- The central conflict for the first Leatherworker questline pits Geva Storke against Dauid. Geva pioneered a special cutting technique to reduce leather waste and environmental harm while retaining the quality of her goods, resulting in higher prices for a superior product. Meanwhile, Dauid is wasteful and produces cheaply-made, unreliable products at bargain prices, resulting in overhunting and poaching. While Geva is no saint given her treatment of her employees, she's undeniably the hero of the story when it comes to reducing the environmental impact of leatherworking and providing a product to be proud of.
- Inverted in the Kobold quests. The "hero" of the quests is Gi Gu, a lowly grunt too lazy to do more than the bare minimum of effort needed to keep himself out of trouble. The villain is Zo Ga, an ambitious fugleman near the top of the Kobold pecking order who tries to develop new weapons with which to attack Limsa Lominsa. The questline involves whipping Gi Gu into shape and giving him enough motivation to defy Zo Ga and win over his longtime sweetheart, Bi Bi.
- God of War Ragnarök: This, along with Older Hero vs. Younger Villain, sums up the dynamic between Kratos and Heimdall. Heimdall has the ability to foresee his opponents' attacks before they make them, which, combined with his Super-Reflexes, makes him nearly impossible to hit, and makes Heimdall pretty arrogant. However, because he's spent most of his life relying on his foresight to best his opponents, and has rarely ever actually been in a serious fight, Heimdall has let his skills slip and is Brilliant, but Lazy. Kratos, on the other hand, grew up in Sparta countless centuries ago, where he grew up under the agoge, with all the Training from Hell and strength-building hard work that includes, and was an experienced soldier even before he became the One-Man Army he is today. This means that he can find a blind spot in Heimdall's foresight, by fighting the watchman of Asgard with Draupnir, a spear — the first weapon Spartans like Kratos learned to use from childhood — and therefore a weapon he doesn't need to consciously think to use, which means Heimdall can't predict what he's going to do. Kratos' greater battle experience, combined with the explosive properties of Draupnir, means that he can catch the green Heimdall off-guard, and eventually close the speed gap between them, getting close enough to finally punch his opponent and draw blood. The sudden realization that he's Not So Invincible After All, along with the fact that he's going to need to actually work to win this fight, psychologically rattles Heimdall, making him fall into flailing, animalistic rage, which deprives him of the benefits of his foresight, and enables Kratos to gradually wear him down, and finally strangle him to death for threatening to hurt Atreus.
- The Secret World:
- The player character is a dedicated agent of their chosen faction who has almost nothing in their life but work, only gets vacation time between expansion packs, and is fully prepared to die in the course of their duties — multiple times. Illuminati PCs can even be informed "I don't want you to think this is an endless, thankless task, but keep doing it." By contrast, Abdel Daoud of the Atenists spends most of his time lounging around in a coffeehouse while his brainwashed cultists do all the work, something his Dragon-in-Chief gives him no end of sass for.
- In Transylvania, player characters are pitted against Her Majesty Mara, queen of all vampires. Befitting her rank, she doesn't have to work with her hands and has numerous lieutenants to lead the troops on her behalf, especially since any real work was polished off decades ago. And unlike Beaumont and Doud, she doesn't even feel the need to budge from her position in Dracula's castle until you arrive to challenge her. It's actually an early hint that she's just a puppet to Lilith, the much more dangerous and more active true villain of the Transylvania arc.
- The Tokyo Arc pits player characters against the Black Signal, AKA John. Despite his loyalty to the Dreamers, he doesn't actually seem to have much interest in doing anything apart from playing sadistic pranks on the locals and exchanging friendly banter with you. It's eventually revealed that he's procrastinating: his mission is to kill Lilith, but he's so scared of her that he's making every excuse possible to not face her — to the point that he tries to pit you against her. As such, it's a very big deal when he finally takes charge of the situation, gets Lilith out of the picture, and becomes an independent menace.
Web Animation
- Sekai no Fushigi: Stories that star a male MC will often have a hero's first lover playing the role of a slothful villain, while the Second Love will be a diligent hero; the first lover will often be a Gold Digger who dumps the hero for being poor, seeming poor, having a poor education, etc in favor of a guy who has better specs rather than sticking by the hero. When she discovers that the hero is more successful than her new boyfriend/husband, she will often attempt to get back with him. Meanwhile, the hero's new lover is more than willing to tough it out with him and work with him to become successful rather than dump him when the going gets tough.
Western Animation
- Cyberchase: Hacker is portrayed this way in select episodes, such as "A Time to Cook", where he secretly has pre-made meals flown in for each stage of the Cooking Duel that the kids try to win fairly.
- DuckTales (2017): Mark Beaks is the Slothful Villain to both Scrooge and Gyro's Diligent Heroes.
- Like Scrooge, Beaks is a wealthy and successful businessman. Whereas Scrooge gained his wealth through through his blood, sweat, and tears and loathes any type of cheating, Beaks became rich through plagiarism and selling of defective products.
- Beaks and Gyro are both inventors. While Gyro is a competent (if socially inept) scientist who focuses on making products that work well with little care for aesthetics, Beaks is a Brilliant, but Lazy, smooth-talking Con Man who either steals others' inventions or creates half-assed products that he tries to make as impressive-looking as possible.
- Inverted in The Midnight Gospel: main character Clancy is an amiable Manchild trying to run a space podcast and routinely tripped up by his own monumental laziness. He uses his incredibly valuable universe simulator to do such things as going on vacations or getting ice cream for a friend and spends the podcast interviews sitting to one side while the interviewees do all the adventuring and/or fighting. Oh, and he neglects basic maintenance of his simulator until it malfunctions and nearly "wobbles", despite his computer's increasingly desperate pleas for Clancy to Read the Freaking Manual. The episode "Vulture With Honor" pits him against his tyrannical neighbour Blithrreyus, a fellow simulation farmer with a much more aggressive work ethic. Blithrreyus is introduced personally maintaining his crop of universe simulators, manages the acquisition of artefacts in person, and demands absolute devotion to the business — to the point of abusing his own children and enslaving simulated entities.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): At the beginning of the episode "Cop Out", Mike Brickowski is the Slothful Villain to practically the rest of the Townsville Police Department. Whereas the other cops do their duties in protecting the city's inhabitants and detaining criminals, Brickowski is a Lazy Bum who does nothing but sleep on the job and eat donuts, while expecting to be handed a promotion sooner or later and blaming the titular girls for making the police useless without looking at himself. It's not until after his predictable firing that Brickowski shows how active he could have been as he attempts to get his revenge on the Powerpuff Girls.
