Basic Trope: The Hero or an ally thereof is given the villain's job after defeating them.
- Straight: Bob catches Eve, his supervisor, leaking trade secrets. Their boss Alice fires Eve and promotes Bob to replace her.
- Exaggerated: Bob, a random clerk in one of the company's franchise stores, goes over the accounts and discovers that Eve the Vice President is embezzling funds in order to pay an assassin to kill Alice. As a reward Alice gives Bob the position after firing Eve and having the cops haul her off.
- Downplayed: Bob (a PI hired to investigate some leaks) is aided in taking down Eve by Claire and Dan (a member of the mid-management and one of his trusted underlings). Alice thanks Bob and pays him his fee, then promotes Dan to Eve's former position and gives Claire a pay rise.
- Justified:
- Alice needs someone to fill the position, and she has someone before her who's just demonstrated that they were able to beat Eve at her own game.
- The villain's organization or even his species operates on Klingon Promotion and decides to apply it to Bob, since he happens to be able to do the job.
- The villain's job was a lead investigator. That Bob exposed him for free and with far fewer resources proves he is superior in both performance and ethics making him the perfect fit for the job.
- The villain's position was elected, and Bob exposing him makes him very popular with the electorate and stand out as an emblem of what the job could be if it was less corrupt.
- Inverted:
- Alice is so furious at the betrayal she fires everyone and covers it all up.
- Eve is innocent; Bob is Evil All Along and framed her as a traitor.
- Alice is the Corrupt Corporate Executive head of an evil MegaCorp or Nebulous Evil Organization- Eve is the Token Good Teammate, and the ambitious and evil Bob exposes her as a hero trying to undermine the organization. Eve is murdered and Bob takes over her job.
- Subverted:
- Eve is not fired even after being exposed.
- Eve is fired, but Bob doesn't get her job despite being perfectly qualified and even wanting it. Alice gives the job to Fred, her trusted PA.
- Double Subverted: Since the entirety of the security department sided or collaborated with Eve and was either arrested or fired, Fred hires Bob, Clair and Dan to management positions in the department (a step up from all their jobs).
- Parodied: Rather than fire Eve, Alice subjects her to a Fate Worse than Death by demoting her and then promoting the much abused Bob as her immediate superior.
- Zig Zagged: Alice promotes some of the characters, but fires or ignores the rest.
- Averted: Alice says she knows just the person to replace Eve... Her trusted PA Fred. She can't promote just anyone to head of security no matter how grateful she is, after all, and Bob is not qualified for the job.
- Enforced: The producers want Bob to be promoted quickly in order to get the series' premise (of Bob being head of security of a large company) up and running, so they use a method that establishes his badass credentials as well as explains how he moved up the ranks so quickly.
- Lampshaded: "Well, logically if you caught her doing a bad job, you must be good at it."
- Invoked: Alice hires Eliza, an actress, to play the part of Eve and find a candidate for her job vacancy.
- Exploited:
- Bob keeps a careful eye on his bosses in case he can catch them in the act and secure himself a promotion.
- Or Alice makes sure her workforce is aware of this trope so they keep an eye on her managers for her.
- Eve knew Alice didn't trust her and couldn't get away with her crimes under her watchful eye, so she had her trusted underling Bob go to Alice and "expose" her so that the now-trusted Bob will inherit her job and carry out their Evil Plan without worrying about Alice interfering.
- Defied:
- Alice carefully screens whoever she hires to make sure they won't betray her.
- Even though Alice is grateful that Bob exposed Eve, she realizes that Bob's skillset is different then Eve's, therefore he is not the best fit for the job.
- Discussed: "Hey, maybe if I found out my boss was up to something and ratted her out I'd get her job."
- Conversed: "I bet she'll give Bob Eve's job, it solves two problems at once."
- Deconstructed: Despite his heroics, Bob isn't cut out for his job and almost immediately hands in his resignation.
- Reconstructed: Alice encourages him to stay on; she knows he has the talent, all he has to do is learn the ropes.
Good job reading this page. Click the link to go back to Expose the Villain, Get His Job and you might be pleasantly surprised!
