Basic Trope: A person, commonly a villain, who is frustrated because he believes his subordinates are too dumb or incompetent to do anything right.
- Straight:
- Emperor Evulz yells at his henchmen for being easily deceived by the heroes and failing to keep his secret lair defended. Namely, General Draco is a Dirty Coward who Ain't Too Proud to Beg and folds like a wet paper towel the moment someone actually proves to be a threat (not to mention that General Draco is a complete dumbass who's a Minion with an F in Evil), Sergeant Biggs is an Omnicidal Maniac who's constantly trying to muscle his way through, making him too focused on power and not at what's at hand (added to that he's comedically Dumb Muscle), Lady Scarlett is rebellious and either actively sabotages plans or screws them up unintentionally, and even Dr. Crazystein has a lot of flaws in his ideas that he barely notices or just refuses to notice.
- A non-villainous example would be that Connor is often frustrated with his peers that they keep failing most of their missions. Namely, Lance is a reckless fool, Brutus is strong but Lethally Stupid, Chelsea barely follows the plan and often derails it (if Lance or Brutus isn't doing it with their recklessness and idiocy respectively), and even Neville has a lot of flaws in his ideas that he doesn't even notice and is generally nonsensical.
- Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz complains that he's the only person on the planet with so much as a lick of intelligence and dismisses everyone else on Earth as a hopeless imbecile.
- Downplayed: Emperor Evulz is annoyed by his henchmen screwing things up, but he will understand if their failure happens because of something they couldn't control and doesn't berate them unless they make a particularly baffling mistake that they really have no excuse for making.
- Justified:
- Emperor Evulz is a narcissist with impossibly high standards and a low opinion of anyone who comes just one quality short of meeting those standards.
- Emperor Evulz is too much of a cheapskate to be an attractive employer to E grade (or greater) underlings. Put simple: He's getting exactly what he pays for.
- Inverted:
- (Lead By An Idiot) Emperor Evulz is frustrated at himself because he feels that his underlings are being burdened by an incompetent leader.
- Evulz surrounds himself with geniuses in their fields who can give him good advice and get things done properly.
- Subverted: Emperor Evulz yells about how everyone working for him is too dumb to do anything right. It turns out he just wasn't in a very good mood today and apologizes for lashing out at his minions.
- Double Subverted: Emperor Evulz then finds out that one of his goons accidentally revealed information that could send the authorities after him lickety split. He goes back to complaining about how his henchmen lack intelligence.
- Parodied: Emperor Evulz berates his henchmen for being unable to help him with a Crossword Puzzle.
- Zig Zagged: Emperor Evulz' patience varies depending on which underling is assisting with his current scheme and how often they tend to screw things up.
- Averted: Emperor Evulz never blames his failures on his minions being too inept or dumb to do things correctly.
- Enforced: "We want to show that the villain is a bit self-centered, and I think having him assume he's the only intelligent person in his organization could be a good way to demonstrate his inflated opinion of himself."
- Lampshaded: "We screw up more than once and you automatically reach the conclusion that it's because we're too dumb for these jobs. Wouldn't it be more fair to consider that we may have simply not had the best of luck when we failed those other assignments?"
- Implied: Emperor Evulz doesn't directly complain to his underlings, but bemoans his difficulty in finding good help.
- Defied: Emperor Evulz, no matter how frustrated failures may make him, refuses to resort to coming to the conclusion that it's his henchmen's fault for being inept morons.
- Discussed: "Isn't it funny how these bad guys always blame their minions for messing things up when things go bad for them?"
- Conversed: "There must be a better person we can work for besides Emperor Evulz. I don't like being called an idiot every time I make a mistake anyone could've done and it causes the evil plan to go south."
- Deconstructed: Emperor Evulz' tendency to complain about how ineffective his henchmen are causes his minions to quit when they get sick of being berated by him.
- Reconstructed: Emperor Evulz uses his complaints to motivate his henchmen to get their act together and to avoid messing up whenever they can help it.
- Played For Horror: Emperor Evulz takes out his frustration on his minions by killing them for trivial mistakes, when he no longer needs them, and just because he wants to.
It's frustrating that I can't get anything done right, because I'm Surrounded by Idiots!
