Sorting Algorithm Of Evil - Television Tropes & Idioms

Unfortunate necessity of most Action Series.

It just makes good sense that as our heroes fight the forces of evil, they should get better at fighting the forces of evil.

Now, the logical conclusion is that as the show progresses, the fights should get easier and easier. Of course, that's just bad drama.

So, you have to consistantly increase the threat value of each obstacle the heroes face. This results in the premise of the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil:

Villains must appear in strictly ascending order by menace.

Which means that the first villain you meet is the weakest, and the last is the strongest. This is all fine and dandy for a while, because even though it seems like a pretty stupid strategy to us, we can at least believe that the Big Bad is working to a strategy by sending out his henchmen in order.

The problem (well, a problem) comes up when a show runs long enough that it needs a new arc. We can maybe believe that the Evil Overlord is enough of a tactical dunce to think that sorting his henchmen like this was a good idea. But why should it be that, just by coincidence, the new (and unrelated) Big Bad who's decided to invade the Earth this season should be even stronger?

Another downside to this system is that if you become interested in a show during season 8, when you go back and watch it from the beginning, the first seven seasons are going to seem awfully lame by comparison (Pshaw. Come on. We're supposed to be worried about this guy? He can't even blow up a galaxy!)

Villain Decay can be used to soften the blow; if the Big Bad ends the season a lot lamer than he started, the next season's enemy doesn't have to actually be any stronger to give the impression of an increasing level of tension.

In series centering around Humongous Mecha or military units, this can be explained by the tendency for technology creep. The heroes will typically acquire new weapons, strategies, and better technology, and so will the enemy. Prototypes will be fielded, refined, jury-rigged weapons will be developed, and new technology from elsewhere in the world will filter through to the heroes.

In a series where a team or group is involved, the villain progresses from weakest to strongest in a Battle Royale With Cheese.

For obvious reasons, a necessary factor of video game logic, where menace is often laid out geographically (which arguably makes sense; some places are more dangerous than others), and the player must proceed through these regions in strictly ascending order by menace (Mount Doom? It's right over there, but you have to go through the Hills of Moderate Evil, which are themselves on the far side of the Forest of Slight Peril. No, the Plains of Perfect Safety aren't anywhere near there).

This trope has ancient roots. Possibly the earliest example, at least in the English language, is the epic Beowulf, making this one of The Oldest Ones In The Book.

Occasionally, a particularly strong or evil villain will ignore this law and arrive early, only to leave the heroes alive because they're not worth killing.

Villains who use this as a tool are often Not So Harmless

Compare Lensman Arms Race

Examples:

Dragonball Z went so far as to give characters an explicit, numbered "Combat Rating", including villains. A very strong human had a rating of about 100. This held out until the middle of the third arc, when the devices that were used to calculate these combat ratings were destroyed; at this point, the Big Bad's strongest form had a rating of around twelve million. Generally, however, the plot set up the progression well; Raditz arrived first, and called on a pair of stronger allies; the heroes went after their boss next; the next Big Bad was created from said boss's cells, plus those of the powered-up heroes, and so on. The final villain was a mild subversion because, while not much stronger than the previous big bad, its unique physiology made it nearly impossible to kill. If you go back to watch the series again, you soon realize that even the first fight was equally as tough as the last. It seems the hero increases in power just enough to get totally beaten by the next big bad. The whole thing is partially subverted in some filler episodes, where Goku casually dispatches villains who fought toe-to-toe with him in his youth.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer generally had a far more dangerous Big Bad each season than the last. Again, good thing Adam didn't show up in season 1. By the end of the series, the only thing strong enough to be a serious inconvenience to Buffy was the personified root of all evil itself (an actual god had already been defeated).
- To be fair to that show in particular, though, the entire series is a coming of age story and the threats get bigger as they increase in metaphoric resonance with 'being a grown-up'. Of course, by the last two seasons most of that metaphor has flown out the window.
- Again to be fair, the Big Bads of seasons 2 and 6 don't really count. The Anointed One, the original Big Bad for Season 2, is a weak little kid vampire that's killed off pretty quickly, and replaced by Spike and Dru--vampires that are more brutal and can move around Sunnydale, but aren't really that scary or evil compared to The Master. When they're upstaged by Angelus, he is only threatening because of his personal relationship with Buffy. As for Season 6, The Trio are essentially joke villians, who Buffy is only unable to crush because of her various insecurities. When they're replaced by Dark Willow, this trope is played more straight, but again much of her threat is not so much her enormous power level by her personal relationship to the Scoobies. And she's defeated with The Power Of Friendship, too, not by the mighty Buffy, but the powerless Xander
Power Rangers relies, each season, on the schtick that this team (and corresponding threat) is "the most powerful ever". In Power Rangers SPD: "Wormhole", the current Big Bad realizes that this indeed means that if he goes back in time to the previous season, the locals should be no threat. How fortunate that the various alien menaces all showed up in the right order.
Stargate SG-1 started out with Apophis, and it seemed like they were never going to get rid of the guy. But when they finally did, even stronger Goa'uld showed up. But that's okay, the team got good at dispatching Goa'uld. So Anubis shows up, with the full knowledge of the godlike beings who'd created the stargates. But they took care of him -- though it was a close one. So, the universe is finally at peace, right? For almost a whole month before the Ori, who more or less actually are gods, show up.
- On the other hand, there may be something of a subversion as it appears that the most powerful and influential Goa'uld in history, Ra, was the one they killed off before they'd even gone to series.
- What Ori?
Robotech carried this off by declaring that Zentradi < Masters < Invid. Robotech: Shadow Chronicles added The Children of the Shadow to this progression.
Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh GX presented villains not only in ascending order by menace, but also, for some reason, feyness. For instance, the first Big Bad in season 1 of GX was a withered old man; Season 2's villain was a younger, more strapping adult male. Season 3 had a Bishounen hermaphrodite Duel Monster. Of course, the feyness of the villain ties directly into...
- ...their personal interest towards the hero. At first, the Big Bad is usually just interested in a certain trinket or item carried by the protagonist, while the next is usually more interested in the protagonist's actual abilities and strengths. The biggest of the Big Bads always seemed to have some kind of intimate interpersonal relationship with the hero, which would border on Ho Yay (since both sides in this series were invariably male), if only the Big Bad wasn't trying to enslave/murder them for some deep, scarring betrayal they blame on the protagonist. There are only two exceptions: Dartz, in the Doma Story Arc, and the Big Bad of the Capsule Monsters arc, which, as far as the rest of the series is concerned, never even happened. Even the original series (never released beyond Japan and taking place before the anime we all know and love) has most of the villains being random thugs met in chance encounters, fitting into the algorithm perfectly.
The opposition on Sailor Moon also sorted itself out into ascending levels of power per season, starting with the Dark Kingdom (which could barely field a single youma at a time) all the way up to Galaxia, who threatened the entire universe.
A literary example (1937) comes from the Lensman series of novels, which worked up from interplanetary gangsters to an evil older than the formation of the solar system whose goal was domination of all intelligent life in the universe. These books justified the algorithm by revealing in each book that the Big Bad of this book was The Man Behind The Man of last book's Big Bad. Then again, the nesting that would be present in the beginning is somewhat mind-boggling.
- Which was present - the prolouge of the first book was dedicated to describing it.
The videogame Final Fantasy XII has a few major exceptions to this. Many of the early stages have extremely powerful enemies wandering around that eclipse the normal small fry. A normally leveled party at this point has absolutely no chance against them, and are advised to avoid them at all costs... though a few determined level grinders choose to go after them anyway, for the experience they give makes it very easy to reach level 50 before even fighting the first boss.
The first two Final Fantasy games avoided this trope entirely; walking ten feet from the starter town led you into the midst of insurmountably powerful enemies.
James Bond movies, however, frequently have the main villain's henchman reappear after the main villain has died and his plot has been foiled. Bond will then dispatch them, often by forcing a backfire of their trademark gimmick.
Exception: In the MMORPG City Of Heroes, Paragon City is divided many different zones, each of which has its own difficulty level. But except for a few limited-access areas, characters can go (and possibly die) anywhere they want in the city.
- Most MMORPGs are structured like this; the only thing stopping a low-level character from reaching high-level areas are the powerful monsters. The sorting algorithm is there, just pointed out as how you should do things, not enforced. Typically, the very high-level areas are an inordinately long walk from the low-level areas, or behind a locked door for which the key is easily acquired on the high-level side, in order to at least suggest the intended progression. However, not always: the Forsaken starting area in World of Warcraft contains a mid-level dungeon in one corner, and is directly adjacent to one of the max-level areas, with some helpful NP Cs hanging around to tell new players not to go past; and the Blood Elf and Night Elf starting regions aren't much better.
Inverted in Half Life 2: Episode One, where the Combine forces become gradually weaker as the protagonist moves from the Citadel (the previous game's Supervillain Lair, where he starts) all the way to the outskirts. The player also gets gradually depowered in the process; first, his Eleventh Hour Superpower reverts to being the normal Gravity Gun, and near the end, his sidekick Alyx stops following him.
Justified in One Piece: As Luffy and crew get further along the Grand Line, they can expect that tougher opponents will appear, since the Grand Line is said to get more and more dangerous as one travels along it, and only the most powerful pirates can survive there.
Naruto plays with this one a bit. The first major enemy, Zabuza, is so strong that the Genin can't be expected to hold their own against him (the same goes for his Battle Butler, Haku, who is about as strong as their sensei). In addition, the Big Bad, Orochimaru, shows up in the second major arc. Those kids aren't lucky...
- It also shows what happens when it goes backwards. Orochimaru was defeated by Sasuke, but when he turns out to be Not Quite Dead, he's Deader Than Dead almost istantly.
Lampshade hung in this ''Zelda Comic'' strip◊.
The PC game Vivisector: Beast Inside has this in abundance: the animalistic enemies are faced based on their level of feralness and anthropomorphism. The Human enemies also get stronger as the game goes on. In a subversion, though, the final leg of the game contains "unfinished" versions of the animal enemies that are pathetically weak and easy to take out..
The first season finale of Heroes has Molly tell us at point-blank range that there is another, much bigger bad than Sylar, who hasn't shown up yet.
- Of course, the one Molly's scared of isn't even the Big Bad of Season 2; just the disciple of someone nastier.
- But the algorithm looks to be subverted as of the second season finale: Big Bad Adam may have become Sealed Evil In A Can but his successor appears to be none other than Sylar.
24 is a serious offender, when the first season, "the longest day of" Jack Bauer's life, is about Drazen's personal vendetta against him and Palmer. The second is about a threatened nuclear attack on Los Angeles. This escalates to a successful nuclear attack at the beginning of Season 6.
In Bleach, this trope's existence is acknowledged by the ghost/shadow/illusion/whatever of the Bounto Arc's Big Bad Kariya. In fact, the reason for everything Kariya did in life was his desire to escape the neverending fighting the trope enforces.
- This also occurs in the wider series, with a cycle where Kurosaki Ichigo goes through a long list of tougher enemies as follows: get the crap beaten out of him by the enemy, somehow power up, fight again and he's now on equal terms, some mid-battle powering up, at which point he can just about stomp the bad guy and it's time for a new more powerful one... the process has now slowed down, but it's still present.
Jackie Chan Adventures justifies this by saying that if an evil is destroyed, it only gives another, stronger evil a chance to take its place. Other than that, the series more or less kept Big Bad Shendu as the strongest foe of choice.
Partially Inverted in Wild ARMs 4. The game seems to follow this trope until you face an ancient demon with total control of space whose lover you just killed. When the enraged demon goes after you, you're only able to kill her because she expends too much energy creating and supporting Another Dimension designed to kill your party and she goes after you again despite her wounds to ensure she takes you out while collapsing the dimension. Her death causes Lambda's strategist to propose a plan to have the remaining Brionac Lieutenants attack the heroes all at once, which gets rejected because The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness had other ideas. From that point on, it seems like you fight the Quirky Miniboss Squad in descending levels of power, culminating in a battle against a scientist who just stands there while you wail on him.
Strangely included in Final Liberation: even if the game allows the player to get stronger units and a better army as he wins battles, the opposing forces will always have the same overall level as the player's army.
In a subversion, while he's received some upgrades over the years, Megabyte from Reboot is not only still the main villain, but with the exception of the now-deleted virus Daemon, he seems have become the most powerful virus in existence!
Infamously present in the otherwise-excellent Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where the entire universe is exactly as powerful as you are at any given point in the game. One can (and often does) complete the game's main quest while remaining at level 1; paradoxically, this makes your boss encounters much easier. In other words, the game punishes you for playing it as it was intended. As you progress, wolves suddenly become extinct throughout the entire game area, only to be replaced with bears, mountain lions, ogres, etc, etc, etc. This editor was so annoyed by this that he was forced to use mods which deliberately make the game extremely difficult from the very beginning, thereby giving you some sense of accomplishment.
This trend seems to be notably missing from the individual episodes Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory series of PC RP Gs, while still being present in the larger arc of the game. For instance, if you attempt to venture into the forest when you first begin Quest for Glory 1, you will almost certainly not escape alive without prior knowledge of its layout. As you acquire skills, equipment, items, and experience, you are soon able to survive the forest during the day - but you still had better stay the hell out of there at night. Even as a top-level player, a nighttime venture in the forest is nigh-suicidal, thereby really giving it a sense of menace that seems to be missing from modern, dumbed-down kid-friendly RP Gs. However, as you progress from game to game, enemies as a whole become globally stronger so as to keep up the challenge. A Quest for Glory 1 character imported into Quest for Glory 4, for instance, would probably be killed from the suspense alone.
Super Smash Bros Brawl. The story mode begins agains the robotic Ancient Minister, then onto the Nintendo villains, led by Ganondorf and Bowser, then the series' perennial antagonist Master Hand and finally Tabuu, ruler of Subspace.
Fire Emblem 9 (Path of Radiance) averts this somewhat. Early in the game, your group is not seen as a big threat, then you journey through independent countries that Daein has less control in. Later in the game it's a little subverted when a knight questions why Ashnard is spreading his force so thin near the end of the game. Ashnard's response is that he's fascinated by the strength of the group and it's implied he wants to personally fight the strongest force possible. Also, he's just plain vanilla crazy.
Drakengard follows this formula for The Evil Army that Caim is fighting across the vast breadth of the land. By the end of the game, he's fighting the gods themselves, and then the Mother of the Gods, but you don't know that at the time. It is important to note that according to series canon he never actually fought the gods, as they went with the one ending of the five that was bittersweet and not a downer.
Monster Rancher mostly subverts this. Pixie is the first of the big bad 4, but stronger than Gali and Greywolf (it takes the entire team sans golem to beat Pixie, but only Moochi or Tiger to beat Gali and Greywolf). also they meet Moo (the Big bad) on the road quite early, and the encounter plays out like a {{Hopeless Boss }}.
- Although its played straight in a sense, since Naga is sthe strongest of the big bad 4, and after that is Moo in his Dragon Body who is incredibly powerful. Buts is subverted agian, because in the next series their up agisant one of his captians, who is obviously much weaker than Moo was
Actually used, somewhat averted and justified in Code Lyoko. Averted because Xana is always the villain with a set type of minions and the heroes become more efficient in their abilities. (They go from one or two of the smaller monsters being difficult to taking on a half dozen larger monsters with relative ease) Justified because Xana's power increases with every battle, and a new monster introduction usually begins with the characters being unfamiliar with it and overwhelmed. It helps that being killed in Lyoko is not permanent, you can learn from your fatal mistakes.
Used and subverted in Prince Of Persia Warrior Within. With an almost WideOpenSandbox style to the game and more difficult enemies, you can go back to the beginning and fight the guards that you initially had to dispose of with a stick! Using the most powerful weapon in the game, the Water Sword, you can beat them with one hit. The Two Thrones had something similar with the Fathers' Sword, if you got a solid hit on most footsoldiers they were gone.
Surprisingly, The Fairly Oddparents... Timmy first starts off having to deal with mean babysitters and school bullies, eventually upgraded to his crazy fairy-hunting teacher. Now he routinely has to deal with the Xanatos Gambit loving Pixies and Anti-Fairies who seem to be content with nothing less than the total domination and remaking of both Earth and the magical world.
Avatar The Last Airbender is an interesting variation. They started with Enigmatic Minion Zuko, who was superseded by Admiral Zhao as the main threat. After Zhao's death came Zuko's Magnificent Bastard Psycho For Hire sister, the main threat for the second season, who posed far more of a threat than Zuko and Zhao combined and whom Zuko rejoined in the season finale. The variation comes from the Fire Lord being identified as the Big Bad from the very start of the series, both the audience and the protagonists fully aware that no matter how many enemies they face he would remain their ultimate goal.
Kung Fu Hustle has a rather clearly evident Algorithm, starting with basic Axe Gang members that are countered by the Pig Sty Alley's three martial artists, who are then countered by the Axe Gang's hired Musical Assassins, who are then countered by the Landlord and Landlady, who are in turn countered by the Made Of Iron and superhumanly-fast Beast, who is in turn countered by the Heel Face Turn-ed Unsympathetic Comedy Villain Protagonist. In a slightly jarring subversion, the Beast attempted to use a pile of basic Axe Gang members to soften up the hero before properly fighting him.
Averted in Rurouni Kenshin. The characters make a point of stating several times that the villain of the third arc (Enishi), while very powerful, is just not on the same level as the villain of the previous arc (Shishio). Enishi manages to make up the difference by striking while everyone's still recovering from the fight with Shishio, and by pretty much freaking Kenshin right the hell out with every sentence out of his mouth.
DGrayMan would justify this, since the Akuma all have specific Levels... except that, as the heroes get stronger, they start fighting higher-leveled Akuma in larger groups.
In Yu Yu Hakusho, every villain is billed as the most powerful, strongest, blah blah blah. Then, by the end of four arcs, we're wondering why, if the King himself couldn't protect against C-level nobodies like Kurama and Hiei in Season One, can Yusuke go one-up against S-level demons in Season Four. Does the King of Spirit World really have security that terrible? Don't think too hard...
- It's revealed at the end of the manga that this is because he hired them, in hopes that they'd be defeated by his people, thereby making himself look better. This arc is completely skipped in the anime, which ends with the second-to-last arc.
- In this Troper's opinion, Hakusho had probably the most broken sorting algorithm in the history of anime. Its pretty bad when even the MAIN character couldn't keep up, leading to some of the annoying aspects of the Chapter Black Saga.