Basic Trope: Evil Minions who all wear matching uniforms and helmets.
- Straight: The bulk of Emperor Evulz' forces wear a standardized uniform, complete with face-concealing helmet.
- Exaggerated:
- The only members of his army who don't wear the face-hiding helmet are his four most powerful commanders.
- The goons panic if their masks come off, because they are no longer anonymous.
- The goons have their faces removed when they sign up.
- The goons wear seventeen masks at a time.
- Downplayed: The goons wear matching uniforms and helmets, but can easily be told apart when not just seen as a large unit. e.g. soldiers in an army.
- Justified:
- The uniforms are well-armored, offer great protection, and present a united, frightening front.
- Not to mention the anonymity, which makes Mooks way more confident.
- The Mooks have a weak point on their face. One that kills them if it so much as touches something other than a mask.
- The villains want to hide the fact that their minions are not quite human under their masks.
- Inverted: The Hero and his friends wear matching outfits that make them all look the same; The Empire's uniforms are more varied and unique.
- Subverted: The goons wear masks that are similar, but have subtle differences upon closer inspection.
- Double Subverted: Under these masks, the mooks all have the exact same face.
- Parodied:
- All warriors who aren't the heroes or the main villains wear the exact same outfit, just Palette Swapped.
- Underneath their masks, the goons are literally faceless.
- Anyone who wears a face-obscuring garment is a member of the Evil Army.
- The villain has trouble telling specific minions apart.
- Zig Zagged: Some of the enemy forces are wearing masks, whether for intimidation, protection (armored helmets or gas masks), or both. The regular grunts don't, to humanize the forces a bit. In a video game, this is done to denote who's elite and who's going to die from two bullets.
- Averted: Every minion's face is clearly visible.
- Enforced:
- Putting all the soldiers under the helmets easily hides the fact that they are all played by the same few actors.
- Game developers don't have time or budget to implement unique faces for the mooks, so they design a few faceless models that can be cheaply reused.
- Lampshaded: "They all look like guys from a cheap video game..."
- Invoked:
- The goons are still regular people and are bound to hide their faces to conceal their identity as criminals/bad guys.
- The villain is attempting to dehumanize his goons, to smear the hero for killing them.
- Exploited:
- Dressing as the Enemy
- All of the Mooks look alike... even the ones that are actually bosses, immune to Kung Fu, immortal, better at breaking things, enemy healers, or just simply better than the others. Good luck figuring out who is who.
- Defied:
- "What do you think I am, some type of cartoon villain?"
- The mooks remove their masks to blend into the civilian population.
- Discussed: "Maybe they really don't want us to see their faces."
- Conversed: "Why do so many villain groups have Faceless Goons?"
- Deconstructed:
- The young hero Albert kills several of Emperor Evulz' forces while under the impression that they're just faceless, mindless monsters. However, when he comes across a wounded soldier who removed his mask, he realizes the truth and has a Heroic BSoD.
- The mooks complain about the masks being unwieldy, stifling, and hard to see through.
- Reconstructed:
- The unmasked solider, Vincent, turns out to a family member of Albert, who after a while recovers his memories and tells Albert that Evulz Brainwashed Vincent into a Faceless Goon, so that Albert would have a Heroic BSoD.
- ... But the mooks survive several shotgun rounds to the face thanks to their armored masks.
- Albert decides that the fact that they're people doesn't necessarily mean they aren't evil, and that he can still beat the crap out of them, provided they live.
- Played For Laughs: Not even the minions can tell each other apart when they're suited up, even mistaking others for themselves.
- Played For Drama:
- General Ripper uses it to intimidate enemy forces. It works.
- The enemy goons slowly forget their own identities.
Back to Faceless Goons.
