History Main / SurroundedByIdiots

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': Scott has a reputation for being TheSmartGuy and the OnlySaneMan of most of the server, and by Season 4, has a practically trademarked tone of voice specifically reserved for expressing exasperation and disappointment at everyone else's shenanigans.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Karkat routinely calls everyone in the near vicinity idiots or similar terms of abuse.

* In ''Manga/BlackButler'' Sebastian is the head butler, and he has his hands full with keeping the incompetent staff in line. There's a maid who breaks dishes and confuses shoe polish with wax, a gardener who destroys everything he touches, a cook who uses flamethrowers, and a guest who keeps trying to turn himself in to the police. ([[JustifiedTrope As it turns out]], this is mostly because the staff was hired on the basis of their [[HiddenDepths competence in very different areas]].)

-->'''Horus:''' Strange is it not, that so many I wish beside me stand against me, while at my back are only the flawed and damaged. I am a master of broken monsters.

* Horus Lupercal of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' expressed this feeling during the infamous Literature/HorusHeresy. With his Primarch brethren split evenly between himself and The Emperor, The Emperor got the likes of [[TheAce Sanguinius]], [[TheParagon Guilliman]] and [[UltimateBlacksmith Vulkan]]. Horus? He got the likes of the morose [[AxCrazy Konrad Curze]], the useless-in-everything-but-a-fight [[TheBerserker Angron]] and the duplicitous [[ComplexityAddiction Alpharius]]. He often bemoaned his ragtag group of allies.

* Tywin Lannister in ''Series/GameOfThrones'' is a rare case of a BigBad who, while unhappy about the situation, is aware of his subordinates' tendency toward idiocy and accepts it as a fact of life. That doesn't stop him from berating them for their incompetence, but he doesn't get ''angry'' about it. He also considers his eldest two children to be stupid in their ways.

-->Yes, I know, I know, it’s MY fault, I hired them… bargain-basement villains, hired at the last minute… SO, this is why some supervillains are always screaming about being surrounded by incompetents.

* Villain [[PsychoElectro Carla Brunelle]] from ''Series/FlandersCompany'' is a {{Magnificent B|astard}}itch and a DragonInChief who is an actual treat in season 2. Starting with season 3, however, [[spoiler:her boss is killed]], and the only remaining competent member of her team is BadassBookworm [[{{Intangibility}} Nadège]]; the three others consist in a bunch of morons with [[FashionVictimVillain horrible sense of fashion]], with only one of them possessing actual (but lame) powers and fighting skills.

* This is one of Henri the cat's laments in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34z5dCmC4M Henri 2, Paw de Deux]]: "The white idiot writhes on his chair, begging for cheeseburgers... I'm surrounded by morons."
* While the RealLife [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] is considered to be an inversion of this trope, the ''Film/{{Downfall|2004}}'' [[WebVideo/HitlerRants parodies]] Hitler is played straight. Hitler's staff is mostly made up of idiots who have such [[SarcasmMode incredibly useful]] skills as pointing at maps, providing Hitler with useless information, getting drunk, objecting to all of his plans, and ranting. Naturally it's often because of them that Hitler's schemes always backfire. It also doesn't help that most of the people who are slightly more competent are constantly targeting him for their own gain.
* ''WebVideo/HowItFeelsToPlayTF2'': As noted in "How it FEELS to play Engineer", playing a support class in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' and locking down a vital area makes Lazy wonder more than any other class what the hell his team is doing when they fail to help him. He apparently imagines them all glitched out in the spawn room.
"WHERE IS MY TEAM?!"

* WebVideo/TheOddOne utters this every time his teammates acted incompetent or didn’t go along with his plan. Since he plays Solo queue, this happens so often, it’s almost his catchphrase.
* The main premise of Website/CollegeHumor's "CEO" videos is that the head of the company covered by the video will try to make amends for a recent gaffe or scandal, only to see that his employees' ideas for new products will only make things worse, [[EnragedByIdiocy with his anger gradually exacerbated by the sheer shortsightedness of the products' designs as well as the employees' idiotic excuses behind making the products that way]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'', Maleficent had been sending her minions to search for Princess Aurora, whom she cast a curse on as a newborn, to put her plan into motion. However, said minions failed in looking for her for 16 years because [[LiteralMinded they thought too much about the "newborn" part]]. Maleficent is not too keen on finding out...
--> '''Maleficent:''' '''''[[YouFool FOOLS!]] [[UnstoppableRage IDIOTS!]] [[PunctuatedForEmphasis IMBECILES!]]'''''\\
[''She starts blasting at her minions, shooing them away'']\\
'''Maleficent:''' Oh, they're hopeless. [[MinionWithAnFInEvil A disgrace to the forces of evil...]]
** In the live-action retelling ''Film/{{Maleficent}}'', this is actually the point where it clearly deviates from the original story: This time she sends her only competent underling, the raven Diablo (renamed Diaval), out ''first'', and [[SpannerInTheWorks the changes cascade from there]].

-->'''Guard:''' (horrified to see Abu holding a sword) He's got a sword!\\
'''Razoul:''' (angrily) Oh, you idiots... (unsheathes his sword) [[NoIndoorVoice WE'VE ALL GOT SWORDS!!]]
* Twice in ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', the villain Carface shouts "''Morons!'' I'm surrounded by ''morons!''"
* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'', Scar says this exact quote about the hyenas. Interestingly, he said this about said hyenas [[TheHyena playing their species's trope straight]], and not the mission they had recently failed.

* An interesting variation in ''Franchise/DespicableMe''. While Gru doesn't find the antics of the Minions annoying (at least not to the point where he berates them loudly and viciously), they do have a tendency to aggravate ''each other''.
* ''WesternAnimation/QuestForCamelot'': Ruber towards some of his dim-witted henchmen and mostly his Griffin. The annoyed expression on Ruber's face gives it away at times.
* In their first appearance in ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', Hades' minions, [[BumblingHenchmenDuo Pain and Panic]], can't even go down the stairs without slapstick stuff happening to them. Which prompts Hades to [[AsideGlance glance at the audience with a "I don't get paid enough for this" look]].

* In ''Anime/MazingerZ'', [[BigBad Dr. Hell]] often feels like this-- ''and rightfully so''. When he was young it was because he thought he was smarter than anybody, but now it is because his minions are, well, stupids. In an episode, he invokes the trope almost word by word. His CoDragons have been fighting for the whole episode, even when they were supposed to engage the enemy. At the beginning, he had tried to stop them and force them to cooperate, but it did not work. So during their latest fight he is (unsuccessfully) trying to ignore them as he has dinner:
-->'''Dr. Hell:''' Why, oh, why such a genius as myself is surrounded by idiots?

->''"Henchmen. Evil, obedient, bright -- pick any two."''
-->-- '''Dr. No''', ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1502.html #1502]]

* As he expresses numerous times, Kazuma of ''LightNovel/{{Konosuba}}'' feels this way about his lackluster party. His Arch-Priestess is a Goddess with the brainpower of a gnat, his Crusader is a crazy masochist who literally can't hit the broadside of a barn, and his mage is an explosion obsessed {{Chuunibyou}} who tires out after casting one spell. He muses quite often that he'd replace all of them if he could.

* In chapter 3 of ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10317264/3/A-Necromancer-s-Wild-Card A Necromancer's Wild Card]]'', a ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''LightNovel/IsThisAZombie'' [[CrossOver crossover]], [[TheStoic Minato]] [[TheHero Ari]][[OurZombiesAreDifferent sato]] provides a heroic example as he quotes this trope verbatim after witnessing [[{{Muggles}} the students]] of [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Ayumu]] [[TheLancer Aikawa]]'s school paying more attention to [[WholesomeCrossdresser Ayumu crossdressing]] instead of a '''[[UnusuallyUninterestingSight giant crawfish monster]]''' that [[ChainsawGood Ayumu recently killed]].

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** [[EstablishingCharacterMoment During his first scene]] in the pilot episode "Caretaker", the Doctor sees himself as this when he suddenly has to treat dozens of injured crewmen after ''Voyager'''s medical staff is killed. He gets especially irrated when he requests a tricorder but Harry hands him a standard tricorder instead of a medical tricorder.
** Lonzak, in ''The Adventures of Captain Proton!'' holoprogram, is an homage to this trope. His bungling gives MadScientist Dr Chaotica a frequent opportunity to emote his famous "[[YouFool FOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!]]" line. Lampshaded also when Janeway (posing as [[FemmeFatale Queen Arachnia]]) is trying to get Chaotica to lower his [[DeflectorShields Lightning Shield]] so Captain Proton (Tom Paris) can attack.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. Lonzak, in ''The Adventures of Captain Proton!'' holoprogram, is an homage to this trope. His bungling gives MadScientist Dr Chaotica a frequent opportunity to emote his famous "[[YouFool FOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!]]" line. Lampshaded also when Janeway (posing as [[FemmeFatale Queen Arachnia]]) is trying to get Chaotica to lower his [[DeflectorShields Lightning Shield]] so Captain Proton (Tom Paris) can attack.

* Characters/DoctorDoom has pulled it more than once, as in his eyes, everyone who isn't Doom is an imbecile...

* Dr. Light (the hero) was the overly serious member of the late '80s comedic Franchise/{{Justice League|OfAmerica}}. She said this a lot.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** In ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'', as she is being taken into police custody, ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} villain [[NamesTheSame/ComicBooks Starfire]] grumbles about her subordinates being cowards, stupid or incompetent.

* In a ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' issue detailing a potential universe where [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] won, Batman taunted him by answering his question of why he was "surrounded by maggots" - after winning, he'd done what he always said he would do: reform creation in his image. Thus, he has no room to complain: all he's seeing is his own ugly mug.

* In ''Fanfic/ShinjiAndWarhammer40K'' Kaworu bemoans his lack of competent henchmen. The trope is then deconstructed as he admits that he's not surrounded by ''idiots'', he's surrounded by the ''mediocre''. SEELE and NERV recruited the best henchmen while the Earth Cradle was essentially a dumping ground for the leftovers. As a result he got people who are less skilled and less ''sane'' than canon Evangelion characters.

* An interesting variation in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe''. While Gru doesn't find the antics of the Minions annoying (at least not to the point where he berates them loudly and viciously), they do have a tendency to aggravate ''each other''.

** In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]], [[Franchise/SpiderMan Peter Parker]] and [[ComicBook/DoctorStrange Stephen Strange]] wind up teaming up with the ComicBook/{{Guardians|OfTheGalaxy}} (minus Gamora, Rocket and Groot). Tony quickly becomes annoyed when the Guardians refuse to listen to any of his plans, and when Peter finally asks what it is they can do, Mantis tells him they "[[{{Malaproper}} kick names and take ass]]". Cue a long {{beat}} where Tony looks like he's seriously reconsidering every single one of his life choices, while Peter looks at Tony with a "well, now what do we do?" look on his face.

* Justified in ''Literature/SailorNothing'': Dark General Cobalt's 'henchmen' (with one exception) are [[TheHeartless heartless]] made from the darkest impulses of the human mind (emphasis on "impulse") and are [[StupidEvil incapable of subtlety, organization, or planning]]. Or anything that doesn't immediately lead to satisfying those desires, really. [[spoiler:And Cobalt isn't aware that the only reason ''he's'' capable of it is because of magical help.]] Things really don't improve for him [[spoiler:in the epilogue, even though he's gone on to command real humans in the normal world.]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has the MadArtist clique Are We Cool Yet, a bunch of a bunch of sociopathically pretentious modern art types with RealityWarping powers that they use to create AnomalousArt. Their leader, Jack Dawkins a.k.a. "The Critic", is frustrated to no end by his underlings' tendencies to make art that simply kills everyone who looks at it [[PragmaticVillainy because the purpose of art is to spread a message, and dead people can't learn anything from it]].

* In ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'', the guild of Gaea Admirers probably wouldn't have even existed if its members hadn't been a bunch of idiots. They want to assist Gaea, who is playing in an enemy faction because they are convinced that she's a DoubleAgent loyal to their own side. In reality, the events that made them come up with the DoubleAgent scenario are actually a NotMeThisTime FrameUp in which their own faction's top guild has a hand; this isn't even kept as a secret at least in the comic version of the story. An episode of the webseries also hints that Gaea's ManipulativeBastard tendencies have an EveryoneKnewAlready status to most players and that the members of the guild of Gaea Admirers are the only ones acting as if whatever they see her do should be kept secret. To top things off, they are also quite incompetent as helpers.

* A non-villainous variant is Creator/AlexTrebek (Creator/WillFarrell) from the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' "Celebrity Series/{{Jeopardy}}" sketches. He just wants to host a game show, but he's stuck with celebrities who can't answer the simplest questions -- and, of course, Sean Connery making rude jokes about [[YourMom his mother]].

* A non-villainous variant is Alex Trebek from the ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches. He just wants to host a game show, but he's stuck with celebrities who can't answer the simplest questions -- and, of course, Sean Connery making rude jokes about [[YourMom his mother]].

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': Creator/WillFerrell portrays Creator/AlexTrebek this way in the "Celebrity ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''" sketches, always being frustrated with the imbecilic celebrities he contends with.

* ''Franchise/TouhouProject's'' [[NinjaMaid Sakuya Izayoi]] has to clean and guard the entire [[BiggerOnTheInside Scarlet Devil Mansion]] in spite of having a virtual army of hundreds of guards and maids single-handedly because the other {{meido}}s would do more harm than good, and the other guards, including ButtMonkey [[GateGuardian Hong Meiling]], tend to sleep instead of stand watch. Which is just as well, they're too incompetent to stop the KleptomaniacHero Marisa, anyway. Somewhat [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] by fanon in Meiling's case: even though she does take the usual siesta, [[BunnyEarsLawyer it doesn't interfere with her work in any way]]. She's actually quite good at dealing with riffraff, a talented gardener and a very good martial artist... none of that particularly useful when trying to stop PlotArmor-infused characters.
** It's also literal - all the other maids are fairies. The most intelligent fairy appears to be '''Cirno''', and considering that she's ''the'' ⑨[[note]]moron[[/note]], that sets the bar very low.

* Charles sometimes feels like this in ''Radio/AbsolutePower'':

* After a failed attempt to teach the other kids of the cul-de-sac after various demonstrations of them being TooDumbToLive, a lamenting Edd of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' says this verbatim.
** He also says this in another episode, "O-Ed Eleven".

* ''VideoGame/Persona5 Royal'': Late in the game, the team has a slightly goofy conversation giving their newest member a codename. The overly serious TokenEvilTeammate of the game makes this comment in response:

* ''VideoGame/Persona5 Royal'': Late in the game, upon deciding a thief's codename and bantering about it a bit:
-->'''[[spoiler:[[TokenEvilTeammate Crow]]]]:''' I am surrounded by absolute fools...

** A lighthearted example in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': Team Skull Admin Plumeria admits the grunts are idiots but she finds it endearing, in an AnnoyingYoungerSibling way, and attacks you to defend her "cute, stupid brothers and sisters".

* ''Film/{{Desperado}}'': A significant source of the film's comedy is BigBad Bucho's increasing (and eventually
[[BadBoss murderous]]) rage at having a bunch of StupidCrooks as minions who are constantly getting killed and making him look bad in front of his fellow Cartel leaders.

* Ganon's minions in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda1989'' definitely fit this description. In one episode when they got sick of his abusive management style, they actually managed to overthrow him and tried to take matters into their own hands, leading to an extremely ill-conceived and self-defeating assault on Zelda's castle. That episode may very well have been the closest Link and Zelda ever came to taking Ganon's Triforce of Power for themselves. (Of course, since succeeding at that would pretty much have been the end of the show, [[StatusQuoIsGod they managed to fumble their own expedition]] as well.) The main reason he keeps these losers around at all appears to be that since they always regenerate, [[WeHaveReserves he's basically got an infinite supply]]. Ironically, it was the final episode aired.