Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
"This type of work can get a bit... messy, Mister Rope." "That it can, Mister Liché." "But Mister Croup, we hurt people. We don't get hurt." Mr. Croup turned out the lights. "Oh, Mister Vandemar," he said, enjoying the sound of the words, as he enjoyed the sound of all words, "if you cut us, do we not bleed?" Mr. Vandemar pondered this for a moment, in the dark. Then he said, with perfect accuracy, "No." — Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
"Mister Rope, I believe someone's reading our entry." "Why, so it appears, Mister Liché, so it appears." "Do you think we should explicate ourselves, Mister Rope?" "I do, indeed, Mister Liché. Salutations, reader. I am Mister Thaddeus Rope, a man of the hatchet, as you might say, and this is my companion, Mister Clive Liché, a personal exsanguinator." "May I continue with the expositionizing, Mister Rope?" "You certainly may, Mister Liché." "Alright then, reader, you may notice something familiar about us. We talk funnywise, yes, and Mister Rope has a bit more smarts than I, so he's usually in charge of making plans. We're independent constricters, y'see?" "I believe you mean contractors, Mister Liché." "That I did, Mister Rope, thank you. Now, because of our potential, many writers use us in various forms. Don't they, Mister Rope?" "They do indeed, Mister Liché, they do indeed. In fact, that's why we're here, because so many writers like to use us and our penchant for exposition and execution." "And because of our killing people, right, Mister Rope?" "That's right, Mister Liché. I believe that's all, reader. Anything you want to add, Mister Liché?" "No, Mister Rope, I never did like maths. Sleep tight, reader." "Yes, reader, sleep tight."
(If you're still not sure who Those Two Bad Guys are, it's "the pair of bad guys who not only provide bloodshed, but also exposition in the form of conversation between them." OK?)
open/close all folders
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Gin and Vodka from Detective Conan. Despite being responsible for the main character's... condition, they really don't seem all that bad. And then they plant a bomb on a train...
- Cold-hearted assassin Kieth Baker and inept robber Sam Perkins in the Western manga Miriam. While they lack the duo dynamic usually present, and they don't usually work together, they fit the mold in a lot of other ways (like the customary occasional personality clash).
- In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui", Jet is pursued by two of these guys, who also appear to be based on the Blues Brothers.
- Rex Raptor/Dinosaur Ryuzaki and Weevil Underwood/Insector Haga in Yu-Gi-Oh! arguably become this as they begin to associate with one another almost exclusively.
- Thorgrimm and Atli in Vinland Saga, up until Thorgrimm tries to make a play for power. Doesn't work out very well for Thorgrimm.
- Mutant experiments no. 666 and 777 in Dead Leaves.
- The Punch Clock Villain Kajinan and Enge from Overman King Gainer. When Japoli joins them they become Those Three Bad Guys.
- Hans and Gacho from Jackals.
- Arguably, however, the main characters Nichol and Huya are also examples of this, being a pair of assassins themselves.
- Hidan and Kakuzu from Naruto. They both bicker a lot, and don't appear to really get along, but are partners nonetheless. Kakuzu being the smart one that comes up with strategy, and Hidan being the rash and loud-mouthed jerk.
Kakuzu: (having just reattached Hidan's head to his neck) Watch the stitches, they'll break if you move too much.
Hidan: You know what, Kakuzu? Eat a dick!
- The same is true for Itachi and Kisame and Sasori and Deidara.
- And then after Sasori is killed, Deidara and Tobi.
- Zetsu and... Zetsu. The left and right sides of his body have split consciousnesses and the halves communicate with each other via speech rather than thought.
- Luke and Jan, the Valentine Brothers from Hellsing.
- The Frost Brothers of Gundam X.
- Also, Bring Stabity and Devine Nova from Gundam 00
- Warera, Loli, and Conda from Super Dimension Fortress Macross are technically three guys but fill the same role and have the same general dynamic before their Heel Face Turn. They also have a hilarious Punny Name ("Warera lolicon da" is Japanese for "we are pedophiles").
- Female version: Sailor Aluminium Siren and Sailor Lead Crow in the Stars season of Sailor Moon.
Comics
- Hazel and Cha-Cha of Gerard Way's The Umbrella Academy. They like the simple things in life. Candy, cookies, pie. And dismembering innocent people with hack saws while plotting nuclear armageddon
- Burt Schlubb (Fat Man) and Douglas Klump (Little Boy) from Sin City aren't exactly killers, but still somewhat fit.
- Fite and Maad, agents of APES, from The DCU's Young Justice. Ironically, they're much more pragmatic than some of the series' other antagonists... but their goals are often much more cruel.
- The Mauler Twins from Invincible are like this (with the rapport and the squabbling and the being evil thing), but they're Mad Scientists, not assassins or anything like that.
- Magmaniac and Tether Tyrant are a more straight example.
- Spider-Man's foes Styx and Stone (they'll break your bones!).
- And several other Marvel Comics villains, like Knight and Fogg, Hammer and Anvil, Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and the Brothers Grimm.
- The Satan Brothers in DC's Lobo, again a Blues Brothers parody.
- Nightwing villains and Evil Albino twins the Pierce brothers, who, despite looking and even dressing exactly the same, do have rather distinct personalities; Barry is a megalomaniac who tends to think only in terms of himself, while Buddy is somewhat dimwitted and easily manipulated.
- Rob and Don in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns blur the line between this and Those Two Guys; They're dangerous gang members, and fanatically attach themselves to the most powerful group, but they're comparatively harmless and mostly comment on other peoples' actions.
- Cannon and Saber from the Vigilante comic in The DCU. Word Of God confirms that this pair were gay.
- Cannon later appeared in Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink with a new partner, Slipknot.
- Assassins Carl and Larry in Southern Knights.
- Bone has the two "Stupid stupid Rat Creatures".
- Slice and Dice, a Brains And Brawn pair of ninjas, in GI Joe.
- Bland and Brass, a pair of body-looters/entrepreneurs from Rogue Trooper.
- Roughhouse and Bloodscream, a pair of superhuman mercenaries who constantly bedevil Wolverine and are virtually never seen apart.
- Luke Cage malcontents Shades and Comanche
- Thor adversaries Mr. Hyde and King Cobra
- X Men villains the Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy almost exclusively worked together after a while. Similarly, the Blob and Unus the Untouchable were inseperable and worked together even when not in a larger team.
- Daredevil ran up against a pair of thugs named Turk and Grotto for years during and after Frank Miller's run. More recently, Ed Brubaker introduced two street level criminals named Chico and Merv who are based on Brian Posehn
 and Patton Oswalt.
- Matt Fraction has said that he wants to use Chico and Merv as villains in his Punisher run, and have Frank force them at gunpoint to rape each other. So Yeah.
- Sturm and Chong, the gorilla gangsters in the Batman chapter of JLApe crossover,
Films
- Jackie Chan fights two villains who fit the trope, first one at a time, and then both at once in the finale of Who Am I?
- Jules and Vincent (pictured, played by Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta respectively) from Pulp Fiction.
- The two NSA agents played by Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman in Grosse Pointe Blank are sort of a marriage of this trope and the traditional Salt And Pepper buddy cop pairing. Martin Q. Blank (John Cusack) and Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) also fit somewhat, although they are rivals.
- Pintel and Ragetti from Pirates Of The Caribbean, who happen to have good guy counterparts in the Royal Navy.
- By the third film, however, these roles are reversed.
- Mr. Frying Pan and Mr. Fire from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. (Their actual names aren't given, but this is what they are listed as in the credits.)
- Going off of the Men In Black reference above, those characters in general have a similar dynamic as this type of character, and the Agents of The Matrix are a particularly good fit.
- Cohen and Tate
- Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre were sometimes teamed up this way after The Maltese Falcon, particularly in their cameo in Hollywood Canteen.
- Showalter and Grimsrud in Fargo.
- Master Blaster, the duo who run Underworld in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome ("They are a unit; they even share the same name"). Master is a mental giant with a body like a small child's; for Blaster, the reverse is true.
- 4-Lom and Zuckuss in Star Wars. The pair even loses face when forced to work with a third bounty hunter in the hunt for the Yavin Vassilika.
- Possible Real Life example: Burke and Hare. Their cinematic versions in 1960's The Flesh and the Fiends definitely fit (and Donald Pleasance is particularly Evilly Affable as Hare).
- The Wet Bandits in Home Alone.
- Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever.
- Jacko and Dwayne, the bumbling escaped convicts in the incredibly lame and Narm-riddled The Legend of Wolf Mountain.
Literature
- Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, the Old Firm, from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. "Obstacles obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome limbs removed, and tutelary dentistry."
- Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, the New Firm, from the Discworld book The Truth.
- Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series has Guido and Nunzio, who work for the main character Skeeve as part of his new connection to the Mafia. It ends up neither one is that bad, and Guido has a history in the theater.
- Hawker and Boon, the schoolboy-suited Prefects from Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist. They are called into service by a greyish protagonist, but they really are not nice people.
- Pex and Chips from Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, though they are conspicuously lacking on the Brains side.
- Bookend killers, bonebreakers, and all round intimidators Crask and Sadler from Glen Cook's The Garrett Files fit this trope like a kidskin glove. After all, they do give people a sporting chance... if you can make it from the middle of the lake to the shore faster than them, they'll let you go, no hard feelings. Of course, did they forget to mention the 100 pounds tied to your legs? Oops...
- Sean Cullen's Hamish X series has Mr. Sweet and Mr. Candy.
- Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd from Ian Fleming's Diamonds Are Forever (1956), probably the Ur Example of this trope... except unlike most examples, they're explicitly a couple. Romantically. They bang.
- Blue and Grey, who menace protagonist Joe Sixsmith in Reginald Hill's novel Blood Sympathy. Blue has pretensions to intelligence is Evilly Affable; Grey is openly uncouth. Both are dangerous men.
- Rosencrass and Guildenswine (their names being one of many ShoutOuts to Shakespeare) of the Welkin Weasels series are pretty close to this category. Usually they're just spies, but near the end of Castle Storm they commit murder on a whim and are willing to kill Sylver and his gang for money. Since they do this in a magical forest, this proves to be their downfall.
- Two of Eva Ibbotson's young adult novels - The Dragonfly Pool and Journey to the River Sea - have comically villainous duos who are hired to kidnap the hero.
- Haruki Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World features "Big Boy" and "Junior", who try to extort information about the Professor's dealings from the book's protagonist midway through the book.
- Mr and Mrs Cavendish in the Nightside book Nightingale's Lament. They run a nightclub where the singer Rossignol, the titular Nightingale, performs, but because they put her through a process which left her mostly dead, her voice now induces her listeners to commit suicide.
- Tom and Ty in Simon Spurrier's Contract, two thugs acting as disposable backup for Michael Point, a professional assassin. Tom's a frustrated New Zealander with a taste for casual ultraviolence and Speed, and Ty's a hulking Jamaican who never speaks louder than a whisper. They're also short-lived Scrappies.
- The Duke and the Dauphin from The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn are Con Artists, not killers, but they're still the lead antagonists who do the heroes the most harm. However, it should be noted they are not a villainous duo prior to their introduction in the novel, but become one shortly after meeting up.
- Finney and Mudd, Felix Jongleur's hirelings in Tad Williams' doorstopper quadrilogy Otherland — not only do they oppress and sometimes torture his employees, but their online avatars wreak havoc in the titular computer network, taking on various forms including creepy versions of the Walrus and the Carpenter.
- Dr. Talos and Baldanders from Gene Wolfe's magnum opus The Book Of The New Sun.
- In Warbreaker, Denth and Tonk Fah may qualify, though Denth is such an Affably Evil Magnificent Bastard that we don't know that they're bad guys for about half the book.
Live Action TV
- Mr. Breughel and Mr. Mahler from the US Max Headroom series. In a later episode it was revealed that Mr. Breughel had had to (ahem) replace Mr. Mahler with a new one.
- The two agents from the first episode of the second series of Spaced.
- "Two by two, hands of blue...."
- The seekers from Charmed. When this troper saw them he suddenly understood the "fox and a wolf" reference on Croup and Vandemar
- Female versions: Marah and Kapri from Power Rangers Ninja Storm.
- The two assassins in a 1961 episode of Danger Man titled "The Island."
- Flint and Knox on Heroes.
- Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective features two bad guys who live the cliché. At one point, one of them realises it, and points out that neither of them has a name - a combo of Breaking The Fourth Wall and Lampshade Hanging that only adds to the already epic levels of Mind Screw.
- They're not villains so much as creepy-but-essentially-neutral set dressing, but the two undertakers in the first season of Slings and Arrows otherwise fit this trope perfectly (including the personality types and manner of speech outlined in the example).
- Traidy and Sorm, the two Orion Syndicate assassins in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "A Simple Investigation".
- Murphy and Camier, two cleaners in the "Once a thief" TV series who get involved in all manner of strange jobs, including one (ep 19) where they spend much of the episode waiting for a mark whose name is not quite Godot.
Theatre
- The Fox and the Cat in the opera The Adventures Of Pinocchio definitely qualify. Although a bit bumbling, and definitely comedic, their scenes can be intensely creepy. And also a bit something else. They might not kill anyone outright, as they're rather poor at their jobs and more tricksters than assassins, but they certainly make a good try at it. (Such as trying to lynch Pinocchio for the five gold coins he got out of sympathy from the puppet show owner.)
- This troper always thought Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of "Hamlet" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" fame counted— they might not be straight up villains in "Hamlet" but they definitely qualify...
- A few William Shakespeare cases, especially the two killers sent after Clarence in Richard III.
Video Games
Web Comics
- Dom and Ed from Megatokyo. Then again, they're actually constantly trying to kill each other, too...
- The Caterers of Calumny, Texto Porfiria and Zuzux Uzbochs, in Unicorn Jelly. Their favorite modus operandi is rather unusual — they pose as caterers and serve poisoned food.
- Arguably, Hunter and Arcturus from Suicide For Hire fall under this heading.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb of Codename Kids Next Door (a homage to Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd).
- Specs and Trapper of Static Shock
- Puff and Onyx, too, a little.
- From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mr. Touch and Mr. Go.
- Danny Phantom's Guys in White are a subversion; They don't even try to be civil and clearly dislike one another. The X-treme Ghostbreakers aren't much different.
- Watch and Ward from The Venture Brothers, who are constanly bickering and trip each other up at every turn. Dr. Girlfriend and the Monarch might qualify, too.
- Kevin and Tim-Tom, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch's Murderous Moppets, definitely fit all known qualifications for this trope. Plus, they're teeny.
- A Lampshade Hanging:
#21: Could you sign this, boss? It's for 24, he got knifed by the Moppets. The Monarch: Which one is 24 again? #21: What?! You're kidding, right? Let me give a hint: you know how every time you talk to me, there's usually another guy next to me. That's 24. The Monarch: Right, right, right, the one that sounds like Ray Romano. I like him.
- Basically just any duo voiced by Hammer and Publick might qualify for this.
- Inverted by Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder, the OSI operatives sent to Jonas Venture, Jr. to help defeat The Monarch.
- Transformers: Beast Machines had Obsidian and Strika, legendary generals. Megatron and Starscream in various incarnations would count if they'd stop insulting each other in the midst of their exposition.
- Arguably, Trypticon and his yes-man Wipe-out in the Transformers comics; They're both persisting menaces that are only barely affiliated with one side; Wipe-Out's primary role is just doing things for the not-exactly-mobile transforming city, and they aren't exactly equals or anything, but...
- And various pairs like Rumble and Frenzy and all of the Decepticon Targetmasters and Duocons.
- Transformers Animated also has Blitzwing and Lugnut, who tend to hang out together even when they aren't actually fighting anyone.
- Not to mention Runabout and Runamuck, an inseparable pair of Beavis and Butthead-like delinquents, and, perhaps most emblematically, Spaceshot and Blackout, the mismatched pair who operates one of the most powerful weapons of the Decepticons' entire fighting force, the Decepticon Anti-Aircraft Base. Spaceshot is dutiful, dedicated, and heroic (yes, there are heroic Decepticons), while Blackout is a cowardly, spineless, would-be deserter. What's more, as Micromaster Combiners, they each transform into one half of a vehicle mode, with the other one turning into the other half.
- Ransack and Crumplezone in Cybertron.
- And every incarnation of the Dreadwing and Smokescreen molds from G2, including the originals, BB and Starscream from Beast Wars II, Gigant Bomb and Smokesniper from Robot Masters, and Smokejumper and Dreadwind from Robots in Disguise and Armada. While the various incarnations have their idiosyncracies, the constant is that they're Brains And Brawn who pal around to cover up their weakness in either area.
- Similarly, the original Dreadwind and Darkwing, as well; Like Dreadwing and Smokescreen, they can also combine. (Their combined form is called Dreadwing, but isn't to be confused with the other Dreadwings. Well, not all of them, anyway.)
- Also, Dreadwind and Darkwing each has an organic partner who powers them up. However, they don't get along with their partners so well.
- Dumb Muscle Korg and his secretly Not So Harmless Butt Monkey Zet in Magi Nation.
- Hack and Slash of ReBoot. Or at least, they would be if they weren't so dumb.
- Two-Badd in He Man. They even have the name down. They're also a subversion, starting out (in the 2002 series, at least) as rival bounty hunters Tuvar and Baddrha hired by Skeletor to bring down He-Man... before they're turned into a two-headed monster for screwing up the mission.
- Gutsman and Cutman in the Ruby-Spears MegaMan production. Shame about their IQs. Elecman and Bombman are a less frequent but definite evil duo.
- Though more jerkasses than true bad guys, Tad and Chad fit this role on The Fairly Oddparents.
- Don't forget about HP and Sanderson.
- Bobo and Weird on The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo, whose purpose was to serve the Monster Of The Week.
- In Seabert, Carbon (whose name rhymes with "brawn") and Sulfuric.
- The Twins from Superjail have this sort of dynamic at times.
- Horace and Jasper from One Hundred And One Dalmatians.
|
|
