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Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
Joel Cairo: More pathetic than you.

A potential villain who is consistently a failure or never gets the respect he thinks he deserves, and may even be angry that the heroes don't take him seriously.

He may not be inept... exactly. Villain Decay is usually too simple an explanation. This is sometimes a relative situation, and the hero's Rogues Gallery just happens to include people more showy, better financed, or just plain scarier than him.

This does not mean he doesn't bear animosity; that's a Punch Clock Villain. He's probably jumping at the opportunity to outdo his rivals and the hero. But there is something about his perseverance or attitude about the whole thing that is just short of sympathetic.

May also be a Determinator out of necessity or overlap with Draco In Leather Pants. If they get even more pathetic in regard to the hero, Unknown Rivalry looms. Just watch out, they may suddenly turn out to be Not So Harmless.

Video Game versions of this trope frequently overlap with the Goldfish Poop Gang if they are just as pathetic in actual battle as they're treated by the story. They may maintain threat status if Conservation Of Competence allows them to keep competent supporters.

Examples

Anime and Manga
  • Mousse from Ranma 1/2 is a loser whose plots against Ranma go only so far before backfiring spectacularly. He was usually played as an unrepentant jerk, although maybe once a season he'd get a moment of quiet reflection for the audience to sympathize with him — right before going back to his old ways, naturally.
    • This is ironic, as Mousse happens to be the most lethal of Ranma's regular rivals. Kuno only carries a bokken and simply wants Ranma 'disciplined' (read beaten up, willing to kiss Kuno's feet and telling him he can have Akane and "the pigtailed girl). Ryoga initially enters the series with an apparent intent to kill, but settles down for pretty much just wanting to steal Akane away and be able to claim he's better then Ranma after the Martial Arts Figure Skating story. In contrast, Mousse spends most of the series perfectly happy to kill Ranma if he has to, and routinely using bladed and impaling weapons whenever he attacks Ranma by surprise. The anime goes so far as to have an episode where Mousse comments on being willing to slip poison mushrooms into Ranma's food.
  • Principal Uchimiyada on Great Teacher Onizuka often plots to get rid of Onizuka, yet is portrayed as less of a threat than the troubled students in Onizuka's class, like Miyabi, Urumi, and (towards the end of the manga) Sho.
  • Jessie and James of Team Rocket, especially in the Fourth Wall-breaking 4Kids version of Pokemon. They are so pathetic, you can't help but feel sorry for them (though it's still satisfying to see them get belted into the stratosphere). They even occasionally team up with the heroes when the fate of the world is at stake, showing they're not really evil — just misguided and incompetent. Ironically, they usually stop being ineffectual whenever they stop being villains.
  • Dorodoran in Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star. Unlike most Pretty Cure villains, he's trying as hard as he can from the start, and is increasingly frustrated and upset by his repeated failures. When he finally comes close to victory, it all evaporates due to sabotage by Michiru and Kaoru. It's hard not to feel sorry for him.
  • Zeta Gundam had Jerid Mesa, who ended up becoming the Designated Rival for the show's protagonist, got into a vicious cycle of each killing the other's friends and/or lovers in battle, and eventually was killed when the hero threw his mobile suit into an exploding battleship. And all this because he made fun of the protagonist for having an effeminate name ("Kamille").
    • To be fair, he died a bit of a Karmic Death, when he decided to challenge the hero right after Emma and her boyfriend Henken died. Kamille was in a pretty bad mood...Doesn't help that his challenge actually delayed Kamille the crucial seconds.
  • Following in Jerid's spirit is Jeremiah Gottwald from Code Geass, who began the show as the military equivalent of a Jerk Jock, but made the mistake of crossing Lelouch, which left him disgraced, hated, and saddled with the ignoble nickname "Orange". His enormous popularity spared him from a planned quick death, resulting in his returning later as an Ax Crazy cyborg.
    • Just to crank up the sympathy another few notches, the side materials revealed that Jeremiah was a palace guard on the day Empress Marianne was killed, and has based his entire career on an attempt to atone for failing not only Marianne, but her children, who disappeared in Japan, leading him to think they were killed by the Japanese, which prompted his racism against Elevens, which resulted in Lelouch (Marianne's supposedly-dead son) publicly humiliating him. Whoops...
    • One could argue that both Lelouch and Britannia subvert this trope, depending on your point of view of who the "bad guy" is, as both seem to equally share defeats and victories.
  • More recently, Gundam 00 introduced Patrick Coulasour, who quickly develops a one-sided rivalry with the Gundams after being publicly humiliated by them in the first episode, only to be dispatched in similar fashion when he returns later. As with Jeremiah, fans latched onto him, giving him the nickname "Team Rocket Patrick".
  • Excel in Excel Saga at times. Often subverted by following a sympathetic moment by doing or saying something disturbing.
  • Viral from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, who goes rapidly downhill from his first battle with the protagonists. By the time the heroes reach the Helix King himself, Viral, even given immortality and a four-armed upgrade to his Humongous Mecha, is swatted aside by Simon as if he was a humorous interlude.
    • Justified He isn't getting more pathetic, everyone else is just growing much stronger via spiral energy, something Viral, as a beastman, can't use. He's still an amazing pilot, as demonstrated when he becomes Gurren Lagann's pilot near the end of the series.
    • He's even more like this in the Alternate Universe Manga, where his goal is just to bring Nia back to her father. Unfortunately for him he's even more unlucky in this setting.
  • Harry Champ from Zoids New Century, though he's more of a rival then a villain per se. Major Polta is certainly innefectual, but does very little to garner sympathy.
    • There's also the Fuzzy Pandas Tigers Team Zabre Fangs; though they do prove to be worthy opponents a few times in the series, they're mostly comic relief, and in fact lose their final battle against the Blitz Team when their Zoids do a facefault and malfunction from the fall.
  • Doctor West from Demonbane is basically just an anime Jack Spicer.
  • Kinkotsuman and Iwao from Kinnikuman are complete losers, plain and simple, who can't seem to do anything right. Of course, they're also kind of a subversion, because Kinnikuman is just as big a loser. Also, sometimes when they aim high, they miss high. Like when Kinkotsuman accidentally shot Terryman in the leg when he was aiming for Kinnikuman and Terryman ended up having to have his leg amputated (This is only in the manga, since in the TV series Terryman eventually gets better, but the toned-down anime scene still is still sad for poor Terryman).
  • Emperor Pilaf and his assistants from Dragon Ball.
  • Japoli, Katejin, and Enge, the Punch Clock Villain of Overman King Gainer who are completely incompetent in their jobs, and are only a threat if they have Overman. They are the main source of comic relief with the Siberian Railroad.
  • Italy in Axis Powers Hetalia, an odd example of an ineffectual sympathetic villain title character semi-protagonist. He really only gets the title of villain because the manga is set predominantly in the WWII era. If further explanation of that is needed...
  • Lilinette, Stark's lolicon fraccion from Bleach. She's currently fighting Ukitake, who is somewhere in the top 5 most powerful shinigami in existence. The fight so far has consisted of Ukitake telling her he didn't want to fight a little girl and simply deflecting or dodging every attack she threw at him. Currently, he's playing keep-away with her Zanpaktou as she cries at him to give it back and threatens over and over again to kill him.
    • And then She merges with Stark and they descend into full out loner Woobie territory — Turns out Lilinette is Stark's Imaginary Friend turned real due to sheer loneliness.
  • Hannyabal from One Piece. Initially presented as the Starscream, but shows that he has it where it counts when the going gets tough.
  • Buaku from Dominion Tank Police, and his sidekicks the Puma sisters. They've always been wannabe Magnificent Bastards, but they were slightly more competent in the manga. Granted, their failures are rarely their own fault, discounting their lack of foresight.
  • Heavy Metal L-Gaim's Gavlet Gabre is a particularly jarring example. He's introduced as the primary rival, but never once defeats the protagonist Daba Myroad. During the final battle at Sveto, he fails to defeat the unimportant and generic villain Rockley Ron, which makes the later the sole villain who makes it out of the show without being captured or killed.
  • In Baccano!, this spot is owned by Dallas Genoard, who isn't all that sympathetic, but is more than ineffectual enough to make up for it.

Comic Books
  • Harley Quinn of Batman The Animated Series tended to fall into this trope, especially when she caught on as a popular character. Harley was often treated as genuinely misguided past her introductory episode, so the audience sometimes forgave her for her more violent behavior depending on how softening a particular episode was.
    • However, in the comic-turned-episode Mad Love, Harley did manage to succeed in trapping Batman effectively. Batman's only hope was to have her inform The Joker, who he knew would free Batman because it wasn't HIM that defeated Batman! Batman even admitted Harley came closer to killing him than the Joker ever did.
      • Harley also suggests just shooting Batman, instead of elaborate death traps. Ironically, by the end of the episode Harley has almost succeeded in killing Bats with an elaborate death trap, while the Joker who previously slapped Harley for even suggesting such thing tries simply shooting him...and fails.
    • DCU Harley recently underwent a Heel Face Turn, and did it without changing her character in the slightest — the only change was that the Joker tried to kill her and she broke up with him for it. Free of his influence, she's doing what she thinks is the right thing... which turns out to be, more or less, the actual right thing. (Plus, she's having fun helping out all the people who usually beat her up. I didn't say the girl got sane.)
      • Given how abusive her relationship with "Mister J" got, she may not be sane, but at least she's consistent.
    • Also from TAS, Baby Doll is probably one of the most sympathetic characters in Batman's Rogues Gallery. She kidnaps her former TV costars, but just to yell at them for abandoning her and forcibly reenact the show. (Still, she is pretty efficient about it.)
  • The Riddler in DC Comics is often treated as slightly less of a threat than most of Batman's gallery because his particular lunacy isn't manifested violently (obsessive-compulsive disorder), nor is he disfigured. Similarly, the fact that the Penguin is perfectly sane may have contributed to his mutation into a gray market white-collar criminal whom Batman is grudgingly willing to tolerate as a source of information on the criminal underworld.
    • The Riddler also had himself a Heel Face Turn recently. He decided that he could use his genius for puzzles to solve crimes instead of committing them and is currently operating as a private detective...for NOW...
    • And let's not forget the Baffler: a second-rate version of Cluemaster, which makes him a third-rate Riddler. Actually, let's forget him after all...
    • Lampshade Hanging with the Condiment King, a ridiculous parody of gimmick villains, who repeatedly gets defeated in one page. Robin has pointed out he's actually got the potential to be quite dangerous, but because he's an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, he keeps getting parole.
    • Lampshade Hanging with the Super Friends incarnation of Scarecrow, as well. Since he never really got to do much for the Legion, Batman was the only one to take him seriously. This includes his own teammates. To quote a Cartoon Network bump:
    Lex Luthor: Scarecrow, you...you're made of STRAW!
  • The Marvel Universe's Toad is a classic example of this. He has second-rate powers, a stupid nickname, and an even stupider real name (Mortimer Toynbee). Understandably, he hated himself. However, the first X-Men live action film, with the character played by Ray Park, changed him into a wry villain with more self-respect and redefined powers that are actually scary in their deadliness — managing to become his own Canon Immigrant.
    • Can't forget that the only time his comic self was actually badass, could kick the crap out of you and still be completely scary while somewhat attractive was Ultimate Marvel 'verse, and even then he did a complete Heel Face Turn and joined the X-men.
  • The Shocker from Spider-Man almost revels in his second-rate status, remarking on one occasion that at least it keeps him off the radar of guys like The Punisher.
    • Not that he's entirely comfortable with it - this troper recalls a scene in which a variety of Marvel heroes are hustling into a superhuman prison, vigorously expositing about the potential damage that the villain they're after could cause. In the process, they run by The Shocker's cell.
      Wolverine, smirking: "Yeah, we wouldn't want the Shocker to get out - then we'd really be in trouble."
      The Shocker, arms crossed petulantly: "Shut up!"
    • In fact, he's kind of hit the skids lately, having been fired from Hammer Industries, where he worked as hired muscle, and not appearing on the local news' supervillain alerts even though Stilt-Man did. Desperate, he teams up with a similarly over the hill Hydro-Man to knock over ONE bank and retire. You feel pretty bad for him when Spider-Man not only stops them, but Shocker accidentally evaporates Hydro-Man and injures himself to the point that his ribs stick out of his chest. "You always said I looked like a pincushion..."
    • Speaking of Stilt-Man... Stilt-Man. A man whose suit of Powered Armor pretty much has the sole effect of protecting him from many normal forms of harm and extending its legs to make him very tall. Yes, this last one sounds as though it has little to no practical application except maybe for delivering a really awesome kick (which he has never done). One of the more baffling villains of his era, writers gave up on revamping him into a serious threat a long time ago, and since then, whenever you needed a really pathetic villain to beat up, Stilt-Man was your guy. Eventually the Punisher killed him, and a bunch of similarly low rent villains went to his wake; his own wife, Princess Python, was pretty pathetic herself.
      • This was even joked about by Cloak and Dagger in Runaways after they suck Nico, Karolina, Alex, and Chase effortlessly into the Darkforce Dimension.
    Dagger: Well that was easy. I don't think we took down Stilt-man that fast.
  • Though the rat creatures in the comic Bone are quite fearsome in force, the nameless two most commonly seen around the valley where the protagonists live are pretty pathetic on their own. They want to eat the story's protagonist, but they do themselves more harm than they do anyone else with their bumbling.
    • Their constant bickering over whether to bake the Bones into a quiche is also quite endearing.
  • Marvel's Porcupine was a rare example of a Heel Face Turn from this type, although it went wrong. The villain initially created his battlesuit to sell to the military, but for some reason they weren't interested (perhaps just because it looked goofy). He became a particularly pathetic supervillain, to the point that when he tried to sell the battlesuit to other villains, they also turned him down. He then turned to the Avengers for assistance, only to be killed by his own costume when he got in the way of the Serpent Squad.
  • The DCU villain Dr. Light was a goofball villain not taken seriously in the Post Crisis era. That all changed with his rape-the-wife moment in Identity Crisis, thereby bringing in one of the more tediously shameful Dork Ages in recent DCU comics history.
    • To show just how large Dr. Light's loser aura was: during his tenure in the Suicide Squad, he brutally killed a teenage superhero on a mission. This was still not enough to make anyone take him seriously.
  • The entire Injustice League, which consisted of Major Disaster, Cluemaster, Clock King, Big Sir, Multi-Man, and Mighty Bruce. Individually, they were all incredibly talented in some area, but sorely lacking in others. As a group... they're still a bunch of losers. Here's how bad their luck is; While staying in Europe, they happened to attend the same French as a Second Language class as the Justice League.
    • During their brief Heel Face Turn, they joined as a Justice League branch—The Justice League of Antarctica.
  • If it was ever possible for a one shot villain-wannabe to attain woobie status within four frames of a comic book, that villain would be the Carpenter.◊

Film
  • Kaa, from Disney's The Jungle Book. His interest in Mowgli occasionally bordered on the paedophilic, though. Unlike in the book, where he's a benevolent Bad Ass Old Master.
  • Peter Lorre in M. And again in Casablanca. And in The Maltese Falcon (see the picture of Joel Cairo above). And Arsenic And Old Lace. In fact, Peter Lorre in general.
    • Peter Lorre in Mad Love; all of the sympathy, three times the creepiness. Fairly efficient, given how nuts he was.
    • Exception: He was pretty unsympathetic and effective in the 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale.
    • Further exception, he's the hero in the film of The Mask of Dimitrios (aka A Coffin For Dimitrios) and Sydney Greenstreet, who was usually the more competent villain to Lorre's ISV is the ISV of this film.
  • On the other hand, Elisha Cook, Jr. made Peter Lorre look lucky. At least Lorre survived most of the above examples (and in Arsenic And Old Lace he even pulled off a Karma Houdini). The same can't be said for poor Elisha in Phantom Lady, The Big Sleep, or The Killing. In Shane, he's practically a good guy version of this trope. But the best example of how much worse off Cook was to Lorre is in The Maltese Falcon where they're both ISVs. Sam Spade disarms and humiliates Cook's Wilmer far more often than he does Lorre's Joel Cairo, despite the fact that Wilmer's a multiple murderer and Cairo isn't. And at the end, their mutual boss (and possibly more) Casper Guttman sells out Wilmer to the authorities while happily walking off arm in arm with Cairo. Joel Cairo may be more pathetic than you, but Wilmer is even more pathetic than Cairo.
  • Inspector Clouseau in the original The Pink Panther managed to be so much more sympathetic than protagonist Charles "The Phantom" Lytton that he was retooled into the hero of the film's sequels.
    • In the following film, A Shot in the Dark, Clouseau transmitted this ISV condition to his boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (soon to become the former Chief Inspector Dreyfus). Dreyfus is actually a good detective who, it's implied, would never have gone Axe Crazy if it hadn'tve been for Clouseau. After his Face Heel Turn, poor Dreyfus has to look on helplessly as Clouseau survives all of Dreyfus' numerous murder attempts solely due to the dumbest of dumb luck.

Literature
  • CMOT Dibbler somewhat fits this description, since while he (like his counterparts across the Discworld) is extremely amoral, particularly in the novel Moving Pictures, his schemes invariably fail and he is back to selling dodgy sausages. For this reason, he is a humorous character rather than an out-and-out villain.
  • Prince (later King) Korin, The Dragon (although the Big Bad dies first) of Lynn Flewelling's Tamír Trilogy...although, especially towards the end, he ends up less sympathetic than merely pitiful. In real-world history, kings like him tended to end up with the sobriquet of "The Unready."
  • While Sloan in the Inheritance Cycle has certainly done some terrible things — killing a man, selling out his village to man-eating mooks, and bullying the protagonist in his younger years — it's revealed that he did everything out of love for his daughter, and so lies on a fuzzy line between this trope and Well Intentioned Extremist who says "I Did What I Had To Do [to protect my daughter]." The punishment Eragon deals him, on the other hand, lies squarely in Disproportionate Retribution territory.

Live Action TV
  • The Stillman Sisters from an episode of Charmed, entitled The Power of Three Blondes. They are trying to steal the Halliwell sisters' powers and prove that they're more than just dumb blondes, and they come oh-so-close to succeeding at both.
  • Dr. Clayton Forrester of MST 3 K springs to mind. As his character brief in the show's official Episode Guide puts it, "His passion for depravity far exceeds his aptitude."
  • Harmony from Buffy The Vampire Slayer after she became a vampire.
  • Halfway through his Villain Decay and before his (grudging) Heel Face Turn, Crais of Farscape became this, having always been a little ridiculous and also rather sad. He remains an egomaniac throughout, though.
  • Peter Campbell of Mad Men. Sure he's an obsequious little jerk who is looking for any opportunity to take advantage of any tiny opening. He's a total jerk to ANY and ALL women and he's so passive aggressive it's sickening. And yet he's almost sympathetic because he's a constant failure with puppy dog eyes.
    • He's actually been developing and now seems to be the only guy who understands the social change that's about to happen.
  • Wiseguy. Mark Volchek runs the town of Lynchboro, Seattle as a personal fiefdom. The OCB is sent in to investigate him, only to find that his big plan is merely to build a cyrogenic storage hospital for the entire town in order to sate his own personal phobia of death.
  • Crossing the border to Real Life here. Smoking Gun: World's Dumbest Criminals, features quite a few of these. From the guy who broke in a convenience store through the roof, but couldn't get back out, to the group of guys who broke into a department store and stole all the display models (which have no working components).

Theater
  • Dr. Einstein of Arsenic And Old Lace. At the very least he's helped Jonathan escape from jail and evade the police. He probably has something to do with the latter's ability to be a contender in the play's Body Count Competition as well. However, he's clearly motivated by fear and spends a lot of time drunk. This may be the reason for his escape at the end.

Video Games
  • In Xenogears, Kahran Ramsus appears as a primary villain early on, and with his prettyboy features, white hair and usage of a sword as his weapon seems destined to be the big bad. By the end of the game his wallflower-like personal assistant has turned out to be the real Big Bad, he finds out he's a failed clone designed to mimic the powers of the main character (Who he has repeatedly lost to) and is abandoned by his masters for his repeated failures.
  • Final Fantasy V had Gilgamesh, the Big Bad's enthusiastic, melodramatic, and ultimately Affably Evil sidekick, who despite being a reasonably tough boss to fight really talked himself up to be a lot more than he was...and eventually, after deciding he liked the heroes a lot more than his boss, he blew himself up to take out another boss that was attacking them - but not without a cheesy and confusing farewell speech.
    • He's proven so popular with fans that he's made reappearances as a summon in VIII, a sidequest character in IX, an unrelated character with the same name in XI, and appeared in all his original glory as a comical quest-character/bonus boss in XII. He was also Retconned into the rereleases of Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy VI as a secret boss/summon.
  • Teisel Bonne from the Mega Man Legends games, supposedly a feared air pirate who gets consistently beaten by Mega and his crew. He was a one-man Team Rocket before Team Rocket was popular. Most of the planning and robots built for the attacks come from his younger sister, Gadgeteer Genius Tron Bonne.
    • Their crew (well, Tron and her herd of adorably indestructible minions, anyway) is so sympathetic they later got their own spinoff game as protagonists that Mega Man wasn't even in.
  • Disgaea has the Dark Adonis Vyers... at least, that's what he was called before the world bent to accommodate Laharl's Lampshade Hanging:
    Vyers: I see. So you saw my potential and decided to strike first against moi... Such wonderful intuition... Well played, son of Krichevskoy.
    Laharl: I've never even heard of you. It's only a coincidence that we're here. You're just a tiny stepping stone on my path to the throne.
    Vyers: *gasp* How dare you! I'm the Dark Adonis Vy...
    Laharl: Who gives a damn about you? Your new name is "Mid-Boss".
    Mid-Boss: M-m-mid-Boss!?
  • Solt and Peppor, the bumbling duo from Chrono Cross fail continually to succeed at anything, even acting as combat tutorials for the main character because of how ineffective their combat planning is.
  • Rose, from Zack and Wiki, gets this in her second appearance. She gets frozen in ice, and used as a statue!
  • Luke Atmey from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. While he was a serious, mad, blackmailing murderer, this troper had trouble taking him seriously because of his...fascinating...pieces of dialogue (Example: Shouting "Shall we say the figurative Sir William will be dropping his panties before lunchtime!" while shifting poses excitedly.) and his ridic—er, interesting looks. (Magnifying-glass monocle? Shaved, black hair with a spikey tuft of blond hair over it? Oversized nose? Seriously?)
  • Winston Payne from the same series, while not a villain, is prosecutor and therefore antagonist. The fact that he was once the famous "Rookie Killer" who claims to have never lost a case in his first seven years as a lawyer, but lost one case along with his hair and from then on was basically a joke makes me feel quite sorry for him.
  • Dist from Tales Of The Abyss certainly comes off as one, introducing himself as 'Dist the Rose' but ending up being called 'Dist the Runny'. For every fight he sweeps in with an over-dramatic entrance and then gets made fun of immediately, usually by Jade, before his humiliating and undignified loss.
  • Pete from Kingdom Hearts II, and loads of it. Seems more like he just picked the wrong side.

Web Animation
  • Burnt Face Man's entire Rogues Gallery, whose nefarious schemes include harassing him over MSN and stealing his submarine (he doesn't have one, the plot was randomised). Taps Man splashes his opponents with water. "Hot, and cold. Hot, and cold, and a combination of them, which I call 'HOLD'."
    • Despite that, Taps Man managed to kill Burnt Face Man's rival, Slightly Bruised Man, with a spray of scalding water, followed with tepid water with lead piping and a faulty boiler.

Webcomics

Web Original
  • Dr. Horrible of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, portrayed as a decent fellow with evil ambitions and a crush on a girl from his laundromat while also bullied around by Jerk Jock superhero Captain Hammer.
    • He even qualifies as a Well Intentioned Extremist; he thinks Utopia Justifies The Means and a benevolent dictatorship would do that. Kind of like the Brain.
    • This troper agrees with this and likes Dr. Horrible a lot. Her flatmate does not, and there have been running arguments over the matter for weeks.
  • Lee Phillips from KateModern, during his brief time as a villain. He is perfectly serious in his plot to revenge himself on Gavin and Tariq, but overshadowed by the arrival of far more threatening antagonists such as Kate's Watcher and Terrence.
  • Voldemort in Potter Puppet Pals. Taken to ridiculous extremes when Harry has Hagrid beating up every character that bothers him. Voldemort tries to kill Harry, and Harry just leaves without even bothering to have him knocked out.
    Voldemort: Ah! Harry! Avada Keda-
    Harry: No time to chat, Voldemort! (runs off)
    Voldemort: Every time I try to kill him...

Western Animation
  • The Amoeba Boys in The Powerpuff Girls. While the Powerpuff Girls are out beating up the real criminals, the poor Amoeba Boys can't get the girls' attention, despite committing heinous acts such as littering, jaywalking, and disobeying a "Keep off the grass" sign.
    • In one of the early World Premiere Toon shorts, the Girls actually commit a bank robbery solely to show the Boys how it's done. When the Girls are brought in for the crime, the boys turn themselves in in an attempt to appear "big time."
    • In another, during the actual series, the Boys stumble upon Mojo Jojo's Deathtrap plans, and they, along with the Girls, mistake it for a "scavenger hunt" — so they find all the things it calls for and put it together, and once it's assembled the Girls think it's a theme-park ride, so they willingly submit to the plan intended to destroy them.
    • In another episode, the Boys catch a cold while loitering on the grass in yet another attempt at crime. Even though they end unwittingly mutating the cold into a deadly strain of virus and even more unwittingly starting an epidemic in Townsville, the viewers still can't help but feel sorry for them.
    • And in another episode, they manage to actually succeed at stealing an orange for once, and when it splits apart, are reminded that as amoebae, they are capable of multiplying. There is quickly an army of them, and the only thing they can think to do is to steal all the oranges in Townsville (although this does cause the citizens to contract scurvy).
  • The Toilenator from Codename Kids Next Door badly wants to be a villain, but is far too wimpy and incompetent to pull it off. He's a minor inconvenience to the KND, and most of the bad guys try not to be seen with him because of his clingy Baldrick personality.
  • In Xiaolin Showdown, Jack Spicer, despite being the main villain in some cases, is usually an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, especially in the later episodes.
  • With one exception (The Phantom Limb) and, in later episodes, The Monarch, all the villains on The Venture Brothers are of this nature.
    • Most of them are of the Not So Harmless type. It's shown that the reason OSI and such tolerate Supervillain's stupid games is it keeps them from committing real crimes or blowing up cities. The Monarch is particular special case. When he was taken off Dr. Venture he was unhappy with the normal game and proceed to kill 5 heroes in a short time.
    • Are we forgetting Doctor Girlfriend, the most competent villain and quite possibly the most competent character on the entire show? Even the Sovereign of the Guild respects her.
  • Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes fame is pretty much the definition of this. In fact, one of the laws of the Road Runner cartoons is "The audience's sympathy must remain with the Coyote."
    • Every Looney Tunes villain is this. It's very difficult to hate the likes of Marvin the Martian and Elmer Fudd.
  • Sideshow Bob also frequently veers into this territory. The poor guy can't even win against a rake.
  • Waspinator from Transformers: Beast Wars is one of these, being as he is a Chew Toy on the side of the bad guys.
    • Ditto for Sky-Byte and his Team Rocket in Transformers Robots In Disguise. Except Sky-Byte would actually be leadership material if only a few things were different. It's just that he lacks the only two qualities that really matter for a leader: aptitude and intelligence.
  • Prince Zuko in the first season of Avatar The Last Airbender.
    • Only the first season?
      • Well, yeah... Only the first... as he was the primary antagonist then. The second season puts him in Anti Villain status, with him and his Uncle spending more time being fugitives from the Fire Nation than trying to capture Aang, along with having Character Development and Enemy Mine "moments" as sprinkles. And then about halfway in the final season the mentioned "moments" is what causes Zuko to become Aang's ally. Then, in the series' ending, he becomes the new Fire Lord, with things getting better and better for him, effectively inverting this trope at that point.
      • I'm gonna be honest, he's only really the main antagonist for the first two episodes, then Zhao takes over.
  • Frisky Dingo's Killface is a pseudo-cultured, incompetent supervillain whose plans are often derailed by trivial matters and lacks knowledge of common subjects (it's a revelation to him that P.C. stands for "personal computer"). He's still more likable than "hero" Xander Crews though.
    • Killface is so sympathetic, especially when compared to Jerk Ass Designated Hero Xander Crews, that it's easy to forget that he brutally killed two people in the pilot and has added to his body count throughout the series. It helps that some of the other members of the cast have committed similar misdeeds and/or are Asshole Victims.
  • Invader Zim qualifies for this trope most of the time, more often than not his schemes thwarted by the Ditz portion of his Genius Ditz personality rather than his arch-nemesis or his Cloud Cuckoo Lander robot. Of particular note is the episode where he survives a Training From Hell in order to receive some Humongous Mechas from his leaders, only to be shot into a sun for his troubles.
  • Karl anyone. The commercials for the next episode subjests he'll join the heroes so he can keep up with everyone else.
  • Professor Chaos/Butters is so inept it's cute.
  • Dr. Drakken from Kim Possible never gets the respect he thinks he should have, he always fails his capers, sometimes even without the help of Team Possible. He often gets mistaken for the more respected Dementor and in the end of the series he is outright told how much a failure of a villain he has been (despite having come closer to taking over the world than any of his peers, and ending up with much of the credit for saving the world from Alien Invasion.) If it wasn't for his Dragon Shego he wouldn't be a villain at all.
  • This troper always felt a little bad for Cobra Commander, who was constantly mocked, ignored or pushed aside not only by other would-be world conquerors, but by his own minions.
    • Of course, he was never anything but effective and unsympathetic in the comics, where, among other things, he killed his own son. Oh, and he used to be a used car salesman, the fiend!
      • He does get the ineffectual part still. Sometimes as part of a Xanatos Gambit. Sometimes because it's an imposter performing poorly. And sometimes Destro just plain doesn't like him, and is willing to take the loss just to make him look bad, mostly because of his 'thing' for Baroness. This troper thinks CC was secretly happy when both of them left Cobra, and just enacted his child kidnapping because he had to save face before the international villainy committee and get back at them in SOME way.
    • The miniseries GI Joe Resolute is also a subversion. Cobra Commander actually has a speech where he claims his previous incompetance was just an attempt to force his minions to think outside the box. He wipes Moscow from the face of the Earth just to prove he could, and by the end of the series he's so unhinged he's hacking his own men apart with a sabre. His plan still failed, of course, but holy shit was he badass.
  • While he started off as a Bad Ass and a walking Crowning Moment Of Awesome, by the end of Kung Fu Panda Tai Lung had become this due to a combination of Freudian Excuse, Sympathy For The Devil, revealing his Start Of Darkness and Well Done Son Guy status, and an Et Tu Brute from his past. This may have something to do with the Humiliation Conga and Kick Them While They Are Down which some viewers see in the final battle—it certainly can't be denied that what had once been a chillingly effective villain seems rather pathetic and easily defeated, Po's understanding of the Dragon Scroll notwithstanding.
    • Of course, after his Arrogant Kung Fu Guy resume is firmly established and he has shamelessly brutalized the entire rest of the cast, others see this as simple Kharmic retribution. Pride goeth before the fall, after all, and a Humiliation Conga was really no less than Tai Lung deserved at that point.
  • The battle droids in Star Wars The Clone Wars, an entire army of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains.
  • Plankton from Sponge Bob Square Pants. After a while, you just start to feel sorry for the guy. It's more prominent in the post-movie episodes, where he could easily be one of the Trix Rabbit's drinking buddies. Granted, he gets a Not So Harmless moment in the movie, but still...
    • Most of the time, it seems he just wants some manner of success. In the cruel Yank The Dogs Chain episode Plankton's Regular, after getting just one regular customer, he immediately stops trying to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula.
  • Grizzle of Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot.
  • The Box Ghost of Danny Phantom draws the line between this and Harmless Villain. He has the potential to be a great baddie (if one episode and his badass future self is any indications, but he just never can make it. Out of all the ghosts Danny has fought, Box Ghost is strictly in the "Who Cares" category, but he tries, he oh so tries.
  • No one's mentioned Dick Dastardly yet?
  • Voltar and the League of Super Evil. Guy is just so very motivated and happy about every plan or scheme he thinks up, no matter how trivial, you just have to root for him. I mean, how many villains are ecstatic about throwing an 'EVIL' barbeque and not inviting their uncaring neighbors?
  • Snively from the SatAM incarnation of Sonic the Hedgehog. He is a reedy and sneering little man who is always consumed by his Uncle Robotnik's quite massive shadow. Also, he's a baldy. However, he turns out to be NotSoHarmless when he manages to slip out before his uncle is killed, and return as a OrIsIt cliffhanger for a season we will never receive.
    • Nope, he was still going to retain this role. In one interview with screen-writer Ben Hurst regarding the third season that never arrived, it was revealed that Snively was going to take a shot at becoming the new Big Bad, only to be shortly upstaged by Ixis Naugus, and would later make a Heel Face Turn and join the Freedom Fighters.
  • Jack W. Tweeg and his sidekick L.B. from The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.
  • Would Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz count as one of these? I mean, sure, his plans are really not well thought out at all (which inexplicably cause their failure), but he had a terrible childhood, never wins any of his fights, is deprived of any chance at happiness he may receive, and on top of all that, he can't even win a fight against a potted plant...You've got to feel sorry for the guy. I guess maybe he wouldn't be considered ineffectual, as he does serve to be a threat if not for being thwarted at the hands of his platypus nemesis every time. Still, that episode where he is no longer considered a threat and Agent P is relocated to a different nemesis might show that he is, indeed, one of these.
  • Sandman in The Spectacular Spider Man can never quite get his big score. Before his superpowers, Spider-man jokes about how many times he's been caught. After, he can actually fight Spidey, but then proceeds to forget or be unable to keep his take when he escapes down the drain. He also gets a couple of Pet The Dog moments when it's revealed that while he cares a lot about the Big Score, he doesn't really want to hurt anybody (other than Spider-man, of course).

Real Life
  • As of this troper's entry, there are no viable real life examples, since nobody cares about Fascist Italy.
    • They're all on scooters going, "Ciao"
    • Mind you, while they are often portrayed this way in fiction, Italian Fascists were neither ineffectual nor sympathetic. Just ask any of the people who tried to oppose Mussolini and his politics before World War Two took a turn for the worse for his regime.
      • Not actually sympathetic? Maybe. Not ineffectual? They were badly beaten on the battlefield during their last-second 1940 invasion of France (FRANCE!)...after the Germans had broken the French in the north. In so doing, they became the answer to the amazing question of who France defeated in World War II.
      • This Troper wasn't referring to the military part, but rather the social part (in Italy, dissidents were often beaten within an inch of their lives, force-fed castor oil and sent into exile on deserted islands; all of the above are neither sympathetic nor ineffectual).
  • The bank robber who was caught when he got "trapped in" the bank he was robbing... when he didn't try to pull the door open, only push it. He was in there for about five minutes before the cops showed up.

Implacable Man
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