Basic Trope: A villain having innocuous hobbies.
- Straight: When not doing evil, Corrupt Corporate Executive Emperor Evulz plays video games.
- Exaggerated: Upper-Class Twit Jerk Jock Emperor Evulz, when not pulling off some Evil Plan, is always seen racing with his Improbably Cool Car.
- Downplayed:
- Corrupt Politician Emperor Evulz plays video games where the goal is to be as evil as possible.
- Emperor Evulz watches various movies and tv shows, somehow believing that they support his murderous philosophies.
- Justified:
- Punch-Clock Villain.
- Villain Protagonist.
- Emperor Evulz doesn't realize that he mixed up his evil plan with his grocery list.
- Despite being evil, Emperor Evulz is still a human being, and thus it's perfectly reasonable for him to have mundane interests, too!
- Emperor Evulz is part of Fiction 500.
- Even bad guys need to de-stress. All work and no play makes Evulz prone to stress-related murders of his underlings.
- The creators wanted to humanize the villain.
- It's good publicity.
- Inverted:
- An ordinary person does evil in his spare time.
- The heroes decide to do something not related to being good.
- Subverted: Emperor Evulz's apparent merry-making is for the purpose of a simple reconnaissance mission.
- Double Subverted: But he also visits an arcade to play some video games during the mission.
- Parodied: We see an sequence of Emperor Evulz detailing his routine. After a lot of planning for his Evil Plan and committing atrocities, it ends on him playing a video game.
- Zig-Zagged: Emperor Evulz spends his free time playing video games...except we find out that he uses the game to contact his allies and set up many of his nefarious schemes...except sometimes, they really do just sit down and relax...which cements their alliance, and strengthens the ally's loyalties towards Emperor Evulz...not that he doesn't find it fun on its own.
- Averted: What Emperor Evulz does in his spare time is never shown.
- Enforced:
- The TV show is being sponsored by a game company. Someone has to be seen playing their upcoming video game at least once, and Evulz is just cool enough to make the game look good.
- Fans have complained that Evulz is a Generic Doomsday Villain, so this episode is written to flesh out his character.
- Lampshaded:
- "In addition to being evil, I also enjoy playing the occasional video game."
- "I have a death ray and I want to enjoy my nachos in peace. What part of this is complicated?"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz notes that he can't do anything to further his evil plans today, so he might as well play video games.
- Exploited: Hero knows that Emperor Evulz is out shopping for video games every Monday so he uses video games at local store to smuggle a bug inside Evil Fortress.
- Defied:
- "I don't need a hobby to occupy my spare time with!"
- "How dare you accuse me of having a hobby! Evil is all that has meaning to me! NOW BEGONE!"
- Discussed: Hiro asks his friends what they think Emperor Evulz does when he's not trying to conquer the world.
- Conversed: "Doesn't this Emperor Evulz guy have any hobbies?"
- Implied: Emperor Evulz can be seen with a shopping list and a videogame console within his lair, but he never uses them on-screen.
- Deconstructed:
- Emperor Evulz slowly becomes addicted to video games and stops paying attention to his evil schemes. This gives Hiro the opportunity to defeat him.
- People start debating about whether video games (or some other mundane interest) had caused him to become even more evil by advocating violence.
- People are weirded out by the idea that they have a common interest with a villain and may even try to distance themselves as much as possible.
- Evulz is a wanted man. Every time he goes out into the public, he risks being spotted by the heroes and taken to justice. This forces him to be Crazy-Prepared with each outing, whether it's through disguises, acting lessons, bodyguards, or the like. Being Properly Paranoid prevents him from enjoying any outing to the extent of an average person.
- Villains are everywhere. Grocery shopping, capping the Fiction 500 Leaderboard, you name it.
- Reconstructed:
- This leads to a Very Special Episode about video game addiction.
- The video games Evulz plays are non-violent and thus, clearly have nothing to do with it.
- A lot of normal, well adjusted citizens play the same games that he did. Even if they did had an effect on him, it was probably very minor.
- Evulz is a wanted man that does take all the precautions he can in going out. He's accepted this as the price to pay for being a major public figure, not unlike the sacrifices heroes make for their own duties.
- Evulz is a Hidden Villain that looks just like everyone else. He can freely go out into public because no one can actually identify him as Evulz.
- Evulz lives in a Wretched Hive or Town with a Dark Secret, where he blends in with the depravity around him. On a setting-wide scale, Evulz won't need to care at all if Humans Are Bastards, especially if they don't have the standards to hold him accountable for his actions.
- Played For Laughs:
- Emperor Evulz has an extremely embarrassing hobby - like collecting Beanie Babies.
- The heroes wonder what evil atrocities he's doing now, cut to him playing video games in his mom's basement.
- Evulz's minions are sick of hearing him talk about his hobbies, but have to pretend they're interested.
- Emperor Evulz knows someone for his favorite online game. Both decide to meet in person ... and turns out to be the hero.
- Played For Drama: When he goes out for shopping, Evulz seperates himself from what he's planning, and vice versa.
- Intended Audience Reaction: Evulz having a hobby a large portion of the audience shares is meant to invoke a sense of kinship with him, to make the idea of him doing an eventual Heel–Face Turn easier to swallow and his Motive Rant more effective.
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