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"He's not the Final Boss. The game has 3 discs, and you're on Disc 1."
A driving force early in a story. The heroes seemed to have defeated him, but then the audience realizes that the show is only in midseason.
The real villain, The Man Behind The Man, will show up later. This may lead to the plot being Hijacked By Ganon.
A cross between a Red Herring and The Dragon, with a little bit of Not So Fast Bucko thrown in. It takes its name from from the video game trope of a Final Boss, not a management figurehead— as much fun as it'd be to find your boss's boss is bringing about the Apocalypse.
Examples
Anime
- In the first season of Sailor Moon, Queen Beryl appears to be the Big Bad, but turns out to be reporting to Metaria; similar plots are followed in the second, third, fourth and fifth season. In the end of the fifth season, it turns out that all of these characters, in turn, are all small parts of the same villain
- In what is probably a mild subversion, the jaw-droppingly powerful vampire/sorceress Evangeline A.K. McDowell in Mahou Sensei Negima likens herself to both intermediate and final bosses from a video game, and refuses to say exactly which she is.
- In the first season of Tenshi Ni Narumon, Dispell seems to be the Big Bad. It turns out, however, that he is literally a puppet of his "sidekick," Silky.
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch uses this in both its seasons; in fact, in the second season, it was effectively used three times, where the viewer thinks that Michel is the villain, then it's Fuku, then it's the fire spirit known as "him", then it's Fuku again.
- Reached ridiculous heights in Digimon Adventure 02. The Digimon Emperor was the Fake Boss under Arukennimon...who turned out to be reporting to Oikawa...who then got Hijacked By
MaloMyotismon BelialVamdemon. Oh, and then there was this guy called Daemon thrown in there somewhere, although he never received any plot resolution.
- In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, it seems that the curse of Oyashiro-sama is to blame for the main characters going crazy and the bloodshed that follows... Surprise! She's one of the good guys! It's actually a disease that causes the insanity.
- Naruto does this on multiple occasions, where Orochimaru turns out to look like a Big Bad at which point he is followed up by Itachi Uchiha who in turn is followed up by Akatsuki. In the recent manga, Pain in turn has also appeared to be a Fake Boss, as Madara Uchiha is revealed to be the true leader of Akatsuki.
Film
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace ends with Yoda and Mace Windu wondering whether the Sith that Obi-Wan slew was the Big Bad or just a Fake Boss. (The audience, having already seen the original trilogy, knows the answer.)
- The Big Bad in Last Action Hero appears to be the mob boss, with Benedict as his dragon. As the far more competent Benedict starts to figure out what's going on, he becomes the real threat while the mob boss is shot by Benedict.
- Especially tricky because the movie is almost over when he's finally taken down: Veck is not the Big Bad of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Commander Kent, the SWAT guy that took over the hostage negotiations and was chasing after Veck with Paul, was actually working with Veck all along. The new villain then gets taken down almost instantly.
Live Action TV
- 24 begins each season with henchmen taking orders from a boss, who reports to yet another boss, and so on until we meet a boss of sufficient charisma to drive the rest of the season.
- Emperor Grumm is played as the main villain of Power Rangers SPD for the first half of the series, then starts making veiled references to a "Magnificence" which he worships. Only in the final episode is this revealed to be "Omni", a giant malevolent brain which Grumm has been secretly serving as lieutenant.
- Avoided in Babylon 5 — just six episodes into the fourth season, the Shadows are persuaded to leave the galaxy and never come back. "Aha," the audience thinks, "we've only just started the season, so we must see them again at some point." No, we don't. They really are gone. Much of the rest of the series deals with cleaning up what they left behind.
- In the first episode of the 5th season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Dracula is introduced in such a way to make it appear that he'll be a major force in the season, especially with his ability to reform after being killed... then leaves Sunnydale forever at the end of the episode.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, 6th season. Warren and his two cohorts appear to be the Big Bad for the season.. right up until Warren makes a big mistake by shooting through a second-floor window while trying to kill Buffy. This proves to be a monumental error. Two Words: "Bored now."
- The Beast from Angel appeared to be the major force of destruction that all the prophecies warned about, and it took the characters quite a while to figure out that it was working for a supernatural being more powerful than itself — and longer still to figure out the identity of this more powerful Big Bad.
Video Games
- The King Of Fighters 2001 reveals that the Zero fought in the previous game was actually a stand-in for the real Zero that is fought in 2001.
- And once you beat Zero in 2001, his boss Igniz appears... who then kills his own boss to remind you that Igniz is indeed the SNK Boss.
- Used in several Final Fantasy games.
- Final Fantasy III. You play through an entire world, discover it's a floating island, find a land frozen in time, battle your way trough everything Xande, the guy responsible for all the misfortune in the world, could throw at you. You fight through 2 dungeons before you can reach him, without save points along the way, up comes the Cloud of Darkness, the embodiment of all the dark power in the world, who forces you to go through yet another dungeon, filled with a couple of more bosses that are tough as nails before you can face her down.
- Final Fantasy IV: Kain is mind controlled by Golbez, who turns out himself to be mind controlled by Zemus.
- Emperor Gestahl in Final Fantasy VI. Around the halfway point, he's assassinated by his second in command, Kefka, who then proceeds to lay waste to the world. Really, if you hire somebody with that kind of name and fashion sense, you're just asking for it...
- President Shinra in Final Fantasy VII, who turns up dead early in Disc 1—slain by Sephiroth.
- The Sorceress Edea in Final Fantasy VIII, who's the boss of Disc 1, but then turns out to be just a puppet for something far worse. She later joins the heroes as an ally, sans most of her superpowers.
- ...and again in Final Fantasy IX, with Queen Brahne who is — as usual — killed by Kuja, who'd previously seemed to be The Dragon. Of course, he's a white-haired prettyboy, so she really should've seen it coming...
- However, this trope was actually subverted by the original Final Fantasy game, in which the first boss, the original Garland, turns out to be the vessel of the Big Bad, Chaos.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics A2, around halfway through the game, you fight a giant purple hand sticking out through a portal, which by all accounts could have been a final boss. However, the game doesn't end there, and at the real end of the game, you go to where the other end of the portal and fight the entire monster—the hand, a gaping maw, and a couple of energy cores of some sort.
- Dragon Quest III was perhaps the first to do this, and one of the only to do it convincingly. After the entire world so far is explored, the Big Bad apparent destroyed, and the apparent ending has started... the real Big Bad shows up from his home in the Hollow Earth and seeks vengeance for his defeated Dragon, requiring the hero to go into the Hollow Earth after him.
- Dragon Quest VIII featured a villain Dhoulmagus who stole a magical sceptre and went around killing people. After chasing him all over the world and going through a rather difficult boss battle, it turns out the sceptre made him do it, and the game is less than half over—now you have to go after the real Big Bad, a Sealed Evil In A Can named Rhapthorne.
- Legend Of Dragoon does this multiple times. It starts with (arguably) Fruegel, then Emporer Doel, then Lloyd, then Emporer Diaz, then Zieg, and then finally, Melbu Frahma.
- In Baten Kaitos Origins, you spend about 78% of the game fighting the sinister Lord Baelheit (and another 20% being Mental Time Travel in which you fight against Wiseman, an apparently unrelated villain millenia in the past). Then, in the last hour of the game, you defeat Baelheit, he gives a Motive Rant explaining that he's the true Spiriter, and has been a Well Intentioned Extremist trying to stop the real villain... your boss, Quaestor Verus, who suddenly turns out to have been an Omnicidal Maniac playing a Xanatos Gambit all along. Nice job killing him, Hero.
- Oh, and at the very end of the game if you've satisified the requirements, Wiseman shows up, despite having been dead for several millenia at this point, and possesses the just-defeated Verus, rendering him a Fake Boss.
- Oh you do the same in Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. You fight your halfbrother, Giaccomo, his two generals, against the Empire, you get all the Magnus cards that contain the body of dead god Malpercio, you get smacked down in what is like Disc One's final dungeon, the Emperor empowers himself with the dead god's powers... Goes insane, gets shot down by his own troops, and voila, what seemed to be the main protagonist undergoes a Heel Face Turn, imprisons all of the other PC's, and resurrect Malpercio. Woohoo!
- Subverted in Overlord where you discover at the end of the game the Player Character is really The Dragon for the titular Evil Overlord (and that you're a Fallen Hero suffering from Laser Guided Amnesia to boot), and you must defeat him to usurp/reclaim your throne.
- Happens roughly a million bajillion times in Tales Of Symphonia, which was made of Not So Fast Bucko. Particularly with Remiel.
- The giant living brain Agathos in Adventures Of Rad Gravity. After you beat him, he returns to human form, and reveals that the Big Bad is none other than your robotic partner Kakos, who has been manipulating you in a Xanatos Gambit.
- Oddly enough, shows up in Bomber Man 64. Altair is hyped up for the entire game to be the Big Bad, except if you've gotten all of the Gold Cards. If you do that, instead of fleeing after you've beaten him, Sirius, the guy who has been helping you out, showing up on almost every level and giving you hints, and dropping you the Remote Bomb powerup before every boss, flies in and kills him, then points out that the guys you've been fighting stole the superweapon from him, and you've been unwittingly helping him recover it. After that, all of the hint-givers in the previous levels tell you that you should die because it would be easier. They aren't lying. The hidden final world is WAY harder than anything and everything that came before it.
- In Might And Magic IV, the Big Bad is Lord Xeen, who is only able to be harmed with a special weapon and can eradicate you at a touch. Once you kill him, another Big Bad shows up and proclaims you have defeated his general. Cue sequel.
- Anyone who's not Wily in the Megaman series, except Sungod from Rockman World 5.
- Anyone who's not Sigma in the Megaman X series, except Lumine.
- Fortunately the Mega Man Zero and ZX series kept it fresh with each game.
- Castlevania, particularly the Metroidvania-era games, is a big fan of this one, with the twist that frequently, the Fake Boss can be the final boss, depending on what you've managed to do throughout the game. This being a videogame series about the eternal war with a certain vampire, however, the Fake Boss tends to be hijacked by Dracula when you do things right.
- Symphony of the Night: Alucard's final foe appears to be Richter Belmont, and if he's defeated normally, Alucard gives a solemn monologue and a Downer Ending. If he puts on a certain piece of equipment, though, he can see that his foe is actually being mind-controlled by a weird ball of light; if Alucard focuses his attacks on this, it's revealed to be the evil priest Shaft and the entire second half of the game, the Inverted Castle, is unlocked.
- Aria of Sorrow: Graham Jones inherits the powers of Dracula, and has an epic battle with Soma. If Soma defeats him normally, the game ends with Soma and his friends escaping the castle, but with him getting a strange feeling. If Soma equips three certain souls, however, and defeats Graham, he absorbs Dracula's powers and finds out he's actually the reincarnation of Dracula, after which he must travel to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and do battle with the essence of chaos within him to set himself free.
- Dawn of Sorrow: The game ends rather anticlimactically if Soma just defeats Dario straight-on, with the other cult members escaping the castle and Soma getting another weird feeling as he leaves. If he gets another certain soul, however, he can enter the mirror in Dario's room and cut Dario off from the fire demon that's fueling his powers. After a long series of events that result from this, he eventually goes to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and does battle with the manifestation of the mutated and out-of-control powers of Dracula. Or something.
- Portrait of Ruin: If Jonathan and Charlotte beat the vampire sisters head-on, Brauner stops them and flees the castle with them, leaving Eric's wish unfulfilled and sending the duo on what would likely be a country-wide hunt for the vampire and his hostages. If Charlotte manages to cast Sanctuary on them, they're cured of their vampiricy and, grateful for the forced Heel Face Turn, grant access to the second half of the game and the eventual battle with Brauner himself... only for Brauner to be hijacked by Dracula at the very end. And Death. At the same time.
- Order of Ecclesia: If Shanoa defeats Albus without having saved all the villagers, she goes home with all the Dominus glyphs for the ritual ...which ends in her life being sacrificed and her mentor gloating over his plan coming to fruition. If she does manage to save all the villagers, Albus gets a chance to warn her about what's coming up, leading to her calling out her mentor for the Treacherous Advisor he is, resulting in an epic boss battle with him. Which ends when he gives up his life to summon Dracula's castle. Nice try, Shanoa.
- In Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within Kaileena turns out to be the Empress the prince has been seeking and the ensueing boss battle takes place. The fake aspect is that this battle occurs halfway through the game and the Prince's troubles don't dissapear afterwards. Kaileena becomes the final boss in the bad ending if you haven't gotten the water sword.
- Skies Of Arcadia features Empress Teodora; the real Big Bad manipulates the Fake Boss just as much as he does everyone else.
- Legend Of Legaia pulls one of these as well. Prince Cort has been defeated and the Mist, all but eradicated. Then Songi shows up and has Juggernaut eat your town. .
- Strong Bad's 5th game: 8-Bit is Enough, has a fake final boss against the supposedly invulnerable Trogdor; who gets defeated with a single slash, emitting final words of "I could not handle your style!". Even Strong Bad himself concedes that it was easier than expected. Cue walls coming down and Ultimate Trogdor appearing.
- Banjo Kazooie led to you believe that the final showdown with the Big Bad, Gruntilda, is a quirky board game/quiz show where you test your memory about the game and run through a few minigames. After you beat it, she skedaddles, Banjo and Kazooie rescue Tooty, and the whole gang goes back home for some well-earned rest and relaxation. The credits roll... and as soon as they're done, Tooty pops up and tells Banjo to get back out there and finish off Grunty. What ensues is probably the most epic final boss battle in the history of the N64.
- Happens a lot in the Legend Of Zelda games:
- Aghanim to Ganondorf in A Link to the Past.
- The Majora's-Mask-wearing Skull Kid, to the Mask Itself in Majora's Mask.
- General Onox in Oracle of Seasons, and Veran in Oracle of Ages, are fake bosses to Twinrova, who are also fake bosses to Ganondorf.
- Zant in Twilight Princess, to Ganondorf. Again. He's very good at this.
- In BioShock, Jack battles his way to the apartment of Andrew Ryan in order to kill him, only for Ryan to point out Jack's Tomato In The Mirror status. After which Ryan commits Jack-assisted suicide in a cutscene. Only then does poor Jack realize that he's been listening to the real Big Bad all along.
- Maleficent is not, in fact, the last boss in Kingdom Hearts, despite what everything up until that point had led this troper to believe.
- To tell the truth, the whole Ansem part had been added at the last moment, because the staff was thinking the scenario was too simple and would offense the FF fans. It didn't stop them.
- A more minor example earlier in the game is the second Guard Armor battle in Traverse Town. Pulling a Fake Boss on, um, itself, it flips over after getting beat up a bit, becoming the Opposite Armor.
- Metroid: Zero Mission has the Mother Brain, a Load Bearing Boss with its own fake final dungeon. After the escape from the exploding dungeon you are treated with victory music and an apparent victory cutscene! But it quickly turns sour as your escape ship falls under attack and you lose all your equipment and have to work through part of the Very Definitely Final Dungeon without it.
- Due to the branching storypaths, most villains in the Nasuverse will fall under this. SHIKI/Roa is quietly killed off and replaced by Akiha in Kohaku's route, which is the last one. Fate Zero quietly shoves Tokiomi Tohsaka, Rin's father and they guy everyone expected to be a very serious contender, to the side and Kotomine takes his Servant. Fate Stay Night has Lancer shove Kotomine out of the way to make way for Gilgamesh as the Big Bad, and in Heaven's Feel Zouken makes it to the end, at which point Sakura effortlessly destroys him and True Assassin. She also ate Gilgamesh about halfway through. Nom nom nom. The two big fights are against Sakura herself, the love interest, and Kotomine, who really ought to be dead. Obviously, he isn't because that wouldn't be interesting enough.
- Throughout Guild Wars Nightfall, you're trying to stop Varesh Ossa from completing her final ritual to release her god, Abaddon. The game even does a good job of disguising the mission where you confront Varesh as the final mission before pulling a Not So Fast Bucko in the ending cutscene: Varesh's rituals weakened Abaddon's prison enough that he can punch through unless you take the fight to him.
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