History VillainDecay / Literature

* Inverted in ''Literature/TheBelgariad''. Belgarath talks smack about Ctuchik throughout the series, obviously considering him a two-penny warlock with delusions of adequacy. However, when the two face off, Ctuchik manages to fight Belgarath (who is at that point seven thousand years old, widely considered to be the most powerful sorcerer in the word, and the Satan-analogue of the faith Ctuchik is a priest of) to a standstill.

** An inversion of this trope occurs when Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy are presented as mere {{Jerkass}}es who like giving Harry and company hell for the first five books of the series, but at the beginning of book six, both are presented as high ranking members of Voldemort's army, the Death Eaters. [[spoiler: It does turn out however that Snape was a DoubleAgent for the Order of Phoenix, and Malfoy was incapable of coping with actually being evil.]]

* Sang-Drax from ''Literature/TheDeathGateCycle'' series was introduced in the fifth book as a MagnificentBastard manifestation of the BigBad that could play [[AntiHero Haplo]] like a fiddle. While he's still cunning in the next two books, he gets a whole lot sloppier, downgrading him to a literal SmugSnake. He finally dies when [[spoiler: a room caves in on him. This isn't as lame as it sounds because said room was filled with magic that was antithetical to him, but still -- he really should have seen it coming]].

** This becomes even more obvious when Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, a villain who was previously viewed as harmless (and still is considered as such in-universe) [[NotSoHarmlessVillain before throwing that façade out the window]] [[spoiler: along with his wife,]] finds Cersei's stupidity and the fact that she still believes herself to be a {{Magnificent B|astard}}itch rather amusing

* Section 31 in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hit hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, {{Batman Gambit}}s going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]] It seems David Mack realized this and ''Literature/StarTrekSection31Control'' undid this, [[TheBadGuyWins hard]]. [[spoiler:All those failures? The AI controlling Section 31 planned for them and recruited Bashir to help take down the agency.]]

* In the final book of ''Literature/TheDarkTower'' series, [[{{Archenemy}} Walter o'Dim/Randall Flagg]] and the [[BigBad Crimson King]], the two main villains up until that point, are reduced to almost non-entities. In particular Flagg, who had once been considered King's 'ubervillain', is easily dispatched in one chapter by a newly introduced character, who finds him pathetic. This is especially troublesome to some fans, since Flagg has been especially troublesome to numerous Creator/StephenKing characters over the years, even surviving (or, more accurately, respawning after) a nuclear blast. Having Mordred kill him is obviously to establish Mordred as even more sinister and dangerous than Flagg, but that's a bit hard, if not impossible, after developing the Flagg character for decades and across numerous books. Made worse by the fact that Mordred's death is very anticlimactic (weakened by food poisoning due to eating the disease-ridden corpse of Lippy the horse, Roland kills him with one shot).

* Section 31 in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hit hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, {{Batman Gambit}}s going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]]

* Section 31 in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hit hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, BatmanGambits going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]]

* For a slightly less deadly kind of enemy, by the last ''Bridget Jones'' book, the arch cad and menace to happy relationships Daniel Cleaver has been demoted to eccentric friend who babysit's Bridget's children.

* ''Literature/LaQueteDEwilan'': When the Ts'liches were first introduced, they were described as the "ultimate predators" that only one man ([[BadAss Edwin]]) was able to defeat in a fight. As the story goes, Edwin goes from being able to defeat one of two of them in a fight, to defeat ''six'' of them at the same time. After that, their last appearance ends with the last of them being exterminated with ridiculous ease, with almost all character getting to kill one.

* The ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' novel ''Time Trap'' was written with the specific intention to avert this. [[BigBad Makuta Teridax]] has previously gone from a dark force of nature to a generic villain who bragged a lot and was constantly defeated in the movies that featured him. Worse, his earlier image was also revealed to have been a lie, as we found out that [[UniquenessDecay he was only one of the many Makuta]]. The book [[IMeantToDoThat retconned most of these defeats as having been part of his plan]], and turned him into a highly GenreSavvy and dangerous foe before this trope could hit him with full force.

* Inverted in ''Literature/TheBelgariad''. Belgarath talks smack about Ctuchik throughout the series, obviously considering him a two-penny warlock with delusions of adequacy. However, when the two face off, Ctuchik manages to fight Belgarath (who is at that point seven thousand years old, widely considered to be the most powerful sorcerer in the word, and the Satan-analogue of the faith Ctuchik is a priest of) to a standstill.

* The ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'' novel ''Time Trap'' was written with the specific intention to avert this. [[BigBad Makuta Teridax]] has previously gone from a dark force of nature to a generic villain who bragged a lot and was constantly defeated in the movies that featured him. Worse, his earlier image was also revealed to have been a lie, as we found out that [[UniquenessDecay he was only one of the many Makuta]]. The book [[IMeantToDoThat retconned most of these defeats as having been part of his plan]], and turned him into a highly GenreSavvy and dangerous foe before this trope could hit him with full force.

* Section 31 in the StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hit hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, BatmanGambits going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]]

* Section 31 in the StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hit hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, BatmanGambits going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]]

* Literature/LaQueteDEwilan: When the Ts'liches were first introduced, they were described as the "ultimate predators" that only one man ([[BadAss Edwin]]) was able to defeat in a fight. As the story goes, Edwin goes from being able to defeat one of two of them in a fight, to defeat ''six'' of them at the same time. After that, their last appearance ends with the last of them being exterminated with ridiculous ease, with almost all character getting to kill one.

* Literature/{{Ewilan}}: when the Ts'liches were first introduced, they were described as the "ultimate predators" that only one man ([[BadAss Edwin]]) was able to defeat in a fight. As the story goes, Edwin goes from being able to defeat one of two of them in a fight, to defeat ''six'' of them at the same time. After that, their last appearance ends with the last of them being exterminated with ridiculous ease, with almost all character getting to kill one.

* Series/{{Ewilan}}: when the Ts'liches were first introduced, they were described as the "ultimate predators" that only one man ([[BadAss Edwin]]) was able to defeat in a fight. As the story goes, Edwin goes from being able to defeat one of two of them in a fight, to defeat ''six'' of them at the same time. After that, their last appearance ends with the last of them being exterminated with ridiculous ease, with almost all character getting to kill one.
* [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] fell hard. The first two books, ''Red Dragon'' and ''Silence of the Lambs'', established Lecter as a highly intelligent and manipulative psychopath with little in the way of redeeming characteristics. In ''Dragon'' his only major contribution to the storyline is encouraging the villain to slaughter the hero's wife and son. ''Lambs'' gives him a small measure of likeability due to his actions leading to the triumph of the hero, the downfall of the villain and the rescue of the victim but his exact motivations for doing so are up to interpretation (and he also kills five innocent people who were in his way). Thanks to Anthony Hopkins mixing in a large dose of AffablyEvil with the already potent levels of EvilIsCool the character was upgraded to a something of an anti-hero in ''Hannibal''. With the addition of a FreudianExcuse and a Robin Hood-esque preference to only killing {{asshole|Victim}}s he was mostly defanged and was the star of his own story, ''Hannibal Rising.''

* Section 31 in the StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hid hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, BatmanGambits going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory. They're portrayed as so incompetent at their mission of protecting the Federation that they fail to prevent [[spoiler: the assassination of President Nanietta Bacco]] but also [[spoiler: don't know that her successor is a Cardassian mole.]]

* Section 31 in the StarTrekNovelVerse has been getting hid hard with this lately. In their original television appearances, Section 31 agents could dance circles around other foreign intelligence services and had some truly devious, if extremely morally questionable, BatmanGambits going on. Now, their operations are routinely foiled by Julian Bashir and his allies. In fact, despite Bashir ruining several of their master plans, Section 31 remains absolutely obsessed with recruiting him to the extent that it borders on StalkerWithACrush territory.

* In ''Literature/VampireAcademy'', [[spoiler:Victor Dashkov]] goes from the lethal BigBad of the first book to somewhat of a lackey for others later on.

** However the Makuta species in general and their {{Mooks}} the Rahkshi did suffer from this a bit. The Makuta who got introduced later acted way more down-to-earth than Teridax and displayed comical traits, what more, one of them, the similarly named Tridax got killed under mere seconds by one good guy. The Rahkshi also went from being near-unstoppable demons to simple foot-soldiers that fell to swords and some fire.

** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkien]] often does this deliberately, but still puts the less-powerful villains in situations where they can get the upper hand. [[spoiler:Saruman]] goes from needing a massive army, a wizard, and more to stop him, to being somebody who could be defeated by a mob of angry Hobbits. Gollum is another example - he finds the One Ring to Rule Them All, and first uses it for murder and theft, but eventually crawls into a cave and uses the Ring's power to ''catch fish''. The Ring doesn't particularly care for this. In fact, this is one of the core themes of the stories, because EvilIsPetty it eventually loses everything that once made it great and noble.
** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'': This is explicitly canon for [[GodOfEvil Melkor/Morgoth]]. He starts out out-powering everything else in the universe except for {{God}} and being quite cunning to boot, but as the book progresses he is drastically weakened after squandering his power on evil creations and getting {{Shapeshifter Mode Lock}}ed, and his cunning goes down the drain as he goes increasingly AxCrazy. He ends up being permanently wounded in a fight with the Elf Fingolfin, despite killing Fingolfin.

* [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkien]] often does this deliberately in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', but still puts the less-powerful villains in situations where they can get the upper hand. [[spoiler:Saruman]] goes from needing a massive army, a wizard, and more to stop him, to being somebody who could be defeated by a mob of angry Hobbits. Gollum is another example - he finds the One Ring to Rule Them All, and first uses it for murder and theft, but eventually crawls into a cave and uses the Ring's power to ''catch fish''. The Ring doesn't particularly care for this. In fact, this is one of the core themes of the stories, because EvilIsPetty it eventually loses everything that once made it great and noble.
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', this is explicitly canon for [[GodOfEvil Melkor/Morgoth]]. He starts out out-powering everything else in the universe except for {{God}} and being quite cunning to boot, but as the book progresses he is drastically weakened after squandering his power on evil creations and getting {{Shapeshifter Mode Lock}}ed, and his cunning goes down the drain as he goes increasingly AxCrazy. He ends up being permanently wounded in a fight with the Elf Fingolfin, despite killing Fingolfin.

** A subversion of this trope occurs when Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy are presented as mere {{Jerkass}}es who like giving Harry and company hell for the first five books of the series, but at the beginning of book six, both are presented as high ranking members of Voldemort's army, the Death Eaters. [[spoiler: It does turn out however that Snape was a DoubleAgent for the Order of Phoenix, and Malfoy was incapable of coping with actually being evil.]]

* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', this is explicitly canon for [[GodOfEvil Melkor/Morgoth]]. He starts out out-powering everything else in the universe except for {{God}} and being quite cunning to boot, but as the book progresses he is drastically weakened after squandering his power on evil creations and getting {{Shapeshifter Mode Lock}}ed, and his cunning goes down the drain as he goes increasingly AxCrazy.
** He ends up being permanently wounded in a fight with the Elf Fingolfin, despite killing Fingolfin.

* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', this is explicitly canon for [[GodOfEvil Melkor/Morgoth]]. He starts out out-powering everything else in the universe except for {{God}} and being quite cunning to boot, but as the book progresses he is drastically weakened after squandering his power and getting {{Shapeshifter Mode Lock}}ed, and his cunning goes down the drain as he goes increasingly AxCrazy.