Sic 'Em

After the hero has won a small but significant victory of some kind, the story cuts away to the Big Bad, typically in The War Room of the Supervillain Lair, punishing his previous underling then gazing into the Palantír and saying something like:

"It seems this Kid Hero is more troublesome than I expected." (points to shadowy figures - his new Quirky Miniboss Squad or The Dragon) "You! Dispose of him. You must not fail me."

Expect them to fail the Big Bad again, cue another Sic 'em scene.

Basically, it's a scene that tells the player/viewer that there's more to come, and that the Big Bad's still on top of the game.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Zagato from Magic Knight Rayearth has a whole chamber to hold audience with his minions every time the Knights overcome the latest foe, just so he can point at one of them ominously and summon them into service. It first appeared immediately after the girls arrived on Cephiro, and the narrative takes the time to focus on each and every one of Zagato's subordinates (seen only in silhouette, hidden behind waterfalls) as they dispense with their thoughts on the new development... making the audience wonder why they didn't all go out at once, and easily thwart the Knights while they were still inexperienced, instead of facing them (and get beaten, naturally) one at a time.
• Final Fantasy: Unlimited, occasionally.

Fanfiction

• Inverted in Rise of the Galeforces - It's the Big Bad himself who gets the short end of the trope after shooting Violet in the back. Since he'd shot the eye of the father T.rex earlier and earned the ire of his babies in the process, Violet in no way hesitates in her order for them to "finish him."

Film

• Darth Vader assembling bounty hunters in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
• A rare heroic example in The Fugitive: Sam Gerard concludes his famous speech to his various Marshalls and police helpers with, "Your Fugitive's name is Doctor Richard Kimball. Go get him!"
• James Bond
  • Dr. No. When Professor Dent goes to tell Doctor No that Bond knows about Crab Key, No orders Dent to kill Bond and gives him an Animal Assassin tarantula to carry out the deed.
  • You Only Live Twice has it twice, oddly enough.
    Osato: [To SPECTRE Number 11, AKA Miss Brandt, re: Bond] Kill him!
    Blofeld: [To Osato] Kill Bond! Now!
  • In Live and Let Die the Diabolical Mastermind Kananga does it twice with his minions.
    Kananga (calm): If he finds it, kill him.
    Kananga (concerned): At any cost - any - Bond must die.
  • The Spy Who Loved Me
    Karl Stromberg: [To The Dragon Jaws] James Bond. And the woman is Major Amasova, a Russian agent. Let them get to shore... and then kill them.
  • Moonraker
    Drax: [To The Dragon Chang] Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him.
  • Tomorrow Never Dies
    Elliot Carver: Mr Stamper, would you please kill those bastards!
  • Quantum of Solace
    Greene: I need help eliminating...a pest.
• The Matrix. After Neo, Morpheus and Trinity escape him, Agent Smith gives an order to the other agents: "Find them and destroy them!"
• Parodied (what else?) in Top Secret!. Upon being informed of an escape, the Nazi commander who is thus informed does not say a word. Rather he looks down at the dossier he's been shown and uses a RUBBER STAMP to imprint 'Find Him And Kill Him' on it.
• Legend (1985). When Darkness first summons Blix he tells him to find and destroy the unicorns, because they are responsible for the sunlight that can destroy him.
• In Dracula Untold, Vlad invokes this with his bat army against the Ottomans. And later his vampire army.
• Used as a Sequel Hook in Thor: Love and Thunder: After Thor humiliates and kills Zeus The Stinger shows Zeus, alive and angry, calling up Hercules for revenge.

Live-Action TV

• The Armstrong and Miller Show. Several sketches in which a man has a perfectly amicable conversation about some mundane matter, wishes whoever he's been talking to a cheerful goodbye, leans over a desk microphone, and says in his best Bond villain voice, "kill them".

Video Games

• In Baldur's Gate II Throne Of Baal, Sendai sends minions when you invade her lair.
• K. Rool in Donkey Kong 64.
• In Final Fantasy IV, on learning Cecil is seeking to become a paladin, Golbez calls in Scarmiglione and dispatches him to stop Cecil's party. What makes this effective is that Scarmiglione and his zombie minions are resistant to Cecil's dark sword. What makes it not effective is that the same can't be said of the mages sent to spy on accompany Cecil to Mt. Ordeals.
  • The "sic 'em" scenes have their own Leitmotif, "Somewhere in the World".
• The final stage of Gunstar Heroes is a classic sic 'em: the camera is in the Emperor's control room while your efforts are broadcast on a big board. You get to watch him send his commanders out to face you one by one and become increasingly pissed as you keep killing them (in addition to the little off-duty mannerisms of the bosses themselves). It culminates in you walking off-camera to break in there yourself. This scenario was so iconic that Treasure's recycled it in a few of their games since then.
• Most of the cutscenes in Karateka have the Big Bad doing this.
• Every time you collect a map piece in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, LeChuck is shown chastising Largo LaGrande for allowing Guybrush to find another map piece and commanding him to go and get him. Possibly subverted in that Largo never shows up.

• Saddler dispatching Krauser in Resident Evil 4.
• In Sonic Lost World, Zazz and Zomom of the Deadly Six are introduced this way, with Eggman sending them to attack Sonic. Averted with the other members: Zik volunteers, Zeena and Zor seemingly just bump into him, and Zavok hijacks the plot to become the Big Bad long before Sonic gets to fight him.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, the cutscene at the end of Episode 3 shows Shredder monitoring the heroes' progress on a video screen as he gives out one order: "Destroy the turtles!".

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue Season Ten has this:
  Sigma: Agent Maine, isn't that the soldier from the freeway? The one who shot you in the throat? I thought so. Sic 'em."

Webcomics

• Subverted in The Order of the Stick. A shadowy guy in a throne room tells a minion "You know what must be done." She replies, "My blades shall be bathed in the blood of those responsible." Cue Cliffhanger ending. Much later (after a long subplot featuring this mysterious foe), we see him replying to this line with, "Uh, actually, I want you to bring them here alive for trial."

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Just when everything's going great for the Gang in Season 3, Zuko hires an assassin to finish his job ("I want you to find him... and end him.")
  • A similar scene (only with the Evil Overlord in shadow as usual and the new kid seen) is our first glimpse of Azula at the end of season one.
• In Sonic Underground, after Sonic first comes to Robotnik's attention, he hires bounty hunters Sleet and Dingo.

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