Basic Trope: The defeated villain turns out to be a decoy.
- Straight: The heroes Alice and Bob push what they believe to be Emperor Evulz off a cliff, only to find that "Evulz" was actually a robot built to fool them.
- Exaggerated: This happens several times with every villain on the show.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob attack the decoy, but realize their mistake before they are anywhere near "defeating" it.
- Justified:
- The decoy was designed to fool Alice and Bob.
- Emperor Evulz depends upon life support powered armor anyway which means that a remote controlled copy can only be distinguished by opening the suit or cutting off the signal.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob kill Emperor Evulz thinking he's a decoy.
- Emperor Evulz destroys robotic versions of Alice and Bob, thinking they're the real thing.
- The Hero kills the original Evulz. This lets Evulz' Doombot replace his original self, which will make it easier for Evulz' original plans to be accomplished because the Doombot is faster, stronger and smarter.
- Subverted:
- The "decoy" is Emperor Evulz after all.
- Alice and Bob do not mistake the decoy for the real Emperor Evulz.
- There is no difference between the "copy" and the "original" he uploaded himself into robot bodies and cloned himself enmasse.
- Double Subverted:
- Correction - it's one of his mooks in a disguise, and was meant to be a decoy all along, and believed itself to be the real deal.
- They mistake another decoy for him later on.
- Parodied:
- The Evulz decoy looks nothing like the real one! ... And yet, Alice and Bob fail to notice that they aren't the same person!
- Alice and Bob are fooled by a crude carving that wasn't even intended as a decoy.
- Emperor Evulz uses his lifelike decoy robots for everyday things like answering the door and talking to his mother-in-law.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob attack Emperor Evulz, but it turns out it was just a robotic decoy, then the real Emperor Evulz suddenly appears and seemingly kills Alice and Bob, but it turns out those were robotic decoys too, then the real Alice and Bob appear and attack the real Emperor Evulz, who ends up short-circuiting and exploding. This causes Alice and Bob to believe that what they just defeated was another decoy, but then a minion Mad Scientist appears and reveals that Emperor Evulz was a robot all along.
- Averted: There is no decoy.
- Enforced: Emperor Evulz was supposed to die as part of the series' Grand Finale, except the network liked the show enough to sign for another season, so the writers had to Retcon Evulz's death with a robot decoy.
- Lampshaded: "So all this time, it was just a stupid robot."
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz builds a realistic robot of himself in order to fool Alice and Bob, or save his reputation if his Evil Plan fails.
- Exploited: The real Emperor Evulz sneaks away while Alice and Bob are distracted by the decoy.
- Defied: Alice and Bob pay close attention to how Emperor Evulz looks, talks, and acts, so that any decoy will fail.
- Discussed: "What kind of technology does Evulz have to be able to make one Doombot; let alone this many?"
- Conversed: "Alice and Bob are so stupid. That robot didn't look anything like the Big Bad!"
- Implied: Alice and Bob are shown chasing a poorly-designed robot of Emperor Evulz.
- Deconstructed: The cost of creating and even maintaining a single Doombot is extremely high, which places a strain on Evulz' empire, taking away resources that could be used for an Evil Plan and instead using them to save his reputation.
- The heroes give up, because every time they think they're facing the emperor, it is a decoy.
- Emperor Evulz finds his sapient duplicates even if inferior to him individually can be proliferated to get more done than he can. After this renders him irrelevant the duplicates decide to dispose of the coward who set them up to die for him.
- Reconstructed: Cut Lex Luthor a Check
- They seek help of a powerful telepath to find the real evulz, and the sheer frustration fuels their fight
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Bob thought they killed Emperor Evulz, but it was really two of his mooks in a Totem Pole Trench.
- Played For Drama: Constantly defeating only a decoy is depressing for Alice and Bob, and they wonder if they are actually accomplishing anything by fighting Emperor Evulz.
- Plotted a Good Waste:The heroes destroy the emperor, only for it to turn out to be a decoy, so they go for the real emperor. However, that emperor turns out to be a decoy, so they go after the REAL emperor. Hoowever, he turns out to be a decoy. This turns into an arc-wide game of cat and mouse. Eventually they find out that Emperor Evulz is just a poltergeist, who makes decoys of an emperor just to mess with the heroes.
Wait, the main page was Actually a Doombot? The real Big Bad must still be out there!
