Look out, that Slave Mook has a gun!
Mooks who have been enslaved. If they aren't brainwashed they normally rebel, if only in small numbers (due to fear). Normally played to tug at those tug-proof heartstrings. Nine times out of 10, the brainwashed version won't rebel, and any supporting characters are depressed by their existence. These mooks are normally controlled by the big bad or are part of a hive mind, and rarely do things willingly. If they aren't used depressingly, expect them to be comic relief. They can be pushovers or bosses, but they share the fact that they have about as much free will as a zombie. If they rebel, it will be in small numbers normally. On rare occasions they will be a boss, but never
The Dragon or the
Big Bad.
Examples:
- In Shadow The Hedgehog, the Robot Shadows count.
- To some, the Clones in Star Wars. They're supposedly designed to be completely loyal, basically more intelligent meat-droids, who obey orders without question. Nonetheless, they're still quite human, forming family bonds and enjoying their lot in life while serving with their Jedi generals. Then Order 66 comes out. And it turns out they really can't disobey orders.
- In Fallout 3, Clover could count as this.
- Lizard people in the Spider-Man 3 video game.
- The Grunts in Halo serve as a sometimes brainwashed version of this trope, and are used as comic relief no less.
- Another Halo example is the Flood Combat and Carrier forms. They don't WANT to be that, but they are forced to by the Infection Form. An enslaved and forced, but not brainwashed, version of this trope.
- The Stalkers in Half Life 2. They are a version of the brainwashed type.
- Like the Flood example above, the Zombies in Half-Life are the same.
- But the best example in both games was the Vortigaunts, who were known as "alien slaves" in the first game, and winning the first game freed them, allowing them to join the good guys in the second.
- The Titan Monsters in Batman Arkham Asylum may be this, but Poison Ivy's minions are this for sure, as they are mind controlled.
- Mass Effect has the Husks, slave mooks of the Geth. They are mindless killing machines.
- Most Sonic The Hedgehog games have the little robots, where the slave is the fluffy animal inside.
- Spider-Man: Web of Shadows has the symbiotes, which Spidey kills without any What The Hell Hero speeches.
- A movie version of this is the Evil Dead deadites, which are possessed (in the first two films).
- Doom has its zombies, slaves to Hell.
- Most robot mooks, period.
- Invoked Trope in the French national anthem:
Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare these sorry victims,
Arming against us with regrets.
- Unfortunately, it's not in the first verse, so nobody remembers it anymore.
- The Codex Alera has the Immortals, slaves wearing "Discipline Collars" that give pleasure when obeying orders and pain when disobeying. They've worn those collars their entire lives, making them utterly loyal to their master and more animal than man.
Real Life
- The most famous examples in Islam are the Caliphate's ghilman (who murdered four Caliphs in a row), Egypt's Mamelukes (who took over the government), and the Turkish Janissaries (well, not slaves, but at first they were confiscated Christian children). They weren't mooks, though, their employers certainly wouldn't have put with their disloyalty if they weren't good at what they did.
- Ancient Athens had servile police, but not slave-soldiers.
