Basic Trope: A character who creates mooks to do their fighting.
- Straight: Sam the Shaman can summon hordes of malicious imps to Zerg Rush his enemies.
- Exaggerated: Sam can summon literal millions of imps that can overwhelm any foe.
- Downplayed: Sam can summon a few imps to sabotage the enemy, but not nearly enough for actual fighting.
- Justified: The King of Imps has pledged his loyalty to Sam after he saved his kingdom.
- Inverted:
- The imps can summon Sam whenever he's needed.
- Alternatively, Sam has the power to teleport imps away to faraway places.
- Alternatively, everyone can summon imps except for Sam.
- Subverted: Sam summons imps to fight for him. Turns out just by summoning them, he didn't make them his servants. They are very grumpy about getting spirited away to a battlefield in the middle of their daily lives, and promptly attack Sam.
- Double Subverted: Sam breaks into a Rousing Speech that convinces the imps that his cause is important and they side with him in the battle.
- Parodied: Sam summons his imp army, and they start complaining about how underpaid they are. Sam ends up spending hours trying to reason with the imps (who have gone on a strike), who refuse to do battle for him until he raises their salaries.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes Sam summons his imps to fight, but occasionally he runs out of magic so he'll just kick his enemies' asses with an ordinary sword.
- Averted: Sam has no magical powers.
- Enforced: The company producing the show decides that Sam must have summoning powers so they can sell various action figures of the imps.
- Lampshaded: "I know you're bossy, Sam, but this is ridiculous!"
- Invoked: Sam goes out of his way to put as many races in his debt as possible, hoping to increase the number of creatures willing to act as summons.
- Exploited When he has no enemies to fight, Sam summons his imps to do housework.
- Defied:note Sam refuses the Imp King's offer because he knows he doesn't have good leader skills, and settles for a treasure chest as reward instead.
- Discussed: "These guys do whatever I make them! Isn't that useful?
- Conversed: "Sam always sends his imps into battles. Man, he must be the worst boss ever."
- Implied: Sam always travels accompanied by many imps. Those enemies who already know him ignore the imps, and go straight for Sam.
- Deconstructed: Sam's imps are shown dying en masse on the battlefield. His brutal disregard of their lives sends him over the Moral Event Horizon.
- Reconstructed:
- Sam decks out his imps in protective armor, employs clever tactics instead of just rushing the enemy in order to minimize the casualties, and provides medical care for the wounded imps.
- Sam realises that his imps are more than just cheap, easily-replaceable troops and are actually alive, so he becomes more considerate to them and lets them live better lives.
- Played For Laughs: Nobody can take Sam's mighty summoning powers seriously because his imps look so ridiculous.
- Played For Drama: Sam ends up making the imp population plummet to near-extinction, and the imps start to distrust him because of how he's going to end them all.
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