Basic Trope: When a character doesn't gloat or toy with their targets, they instead try to kill or defeat their opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible.
- Straight: Mr. Razor never indulges in Evil Gloating, never explains anything as Just Between You and Me, and attacks the heroes using the simplest and most ruthless means at his disposal.
- Exaggerated:
- Mr. Razor is a Silent Antagonist that does nothing but Speed Blitz the heroes one after another, and is willing to mercilessly Kick Them While They Are Down.
- The heroes never find out that "Mr. Razor" the Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer even exists up until the final scene of the film wherein he kills them all with a sniper rifle, machine gun, or cleverly concealed MOAB-level explosive.
- Mr. Razor killed the heroes during the opening credits, and continues to oneshot strings of potential replacement protags throughout the story that may avenge them.
- Downplayed:
- Mr. Razor only gloats AFTER his target is dead and in his own soundproof room, and while he holds back when he fights, this is in order to surprise his foe with newly revealed powers, not because he’s being sadistic or underestimating them.
- Mr. Razor only doesn't immediately kill his foes if they have something he wants like information, a ransom value, or hostage or potential slave for sale. It may bite him later but he always has a purpose.
- Mr. Razor is a Pacifist who would prefer not to fight unless absolutely necessary, but as soon as he is forced to drop his pacifism, he guns down his targets before they have time to react.
- Mr. Razor is extremely efficient at beating people unconscious, be it right to their faces or to their backs. Anything else, and he's toast.
- Justified:
- Mr. Razor isn't actually a physical match for our heroes, and cannot afford to screw around in the rare event he does have to fight physically.
- Mr. Razor doesn't hate the hero, but needs him out of the way, and so he tries to get them out of his way as quickly and quietly as possible.
- Or in contrast to the above, Mr Razor utterly despises the hero and wants them dead and gone from the face of the very Earth as quickly, efficiently and definitively as possible, honour or acts of psychotic stupidity be damned.
- Mr. Razor doesn't care about showing off; he only cares about getting things done.
- The heroes are simply that dangerous, and having known from their track records as being incredibly smart and tough to nigh-impossible to beat, decides to get rid of them before they pose a challenge he cannot overcome.
- Mr. Razor is driven only by instinct, no planning beyond the here and now in his actions.
- Mr. Razor is a pissed-off man with a gun standing in front of the person who pissed him off; Razor wants only one solution to this "nonsense".
- Mr. Razor is an idiot and, for good or ill, simple minds only think simple solutions.
- Inverted:
- Mr. Razor is under Contractual Genre Blindness, suffers from Complexity Addiction, is always Just Toying with Them, and gloats constantly even when he's losing.
- Mr. Razor is a Fair-Play Villain and always gives the heroes an honest chance.
- Mr. Razor is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Protagonist who is constantly barely a hairsbreadth away from getting killed by the hypercompetent and incredibly ruthless Hero Antagonists who are so no-nonsense that they feel more like a force of nature than a bunch of people seeking justice.
- Role-Inverted: Practical Hero/Mundane Ally. Captain Awesome doesn't take the time introducing himself and brings the villains, criminals and anyone evil to justice by using the simplest methods (like calling the Police, Military or his own allies as backup) or the most ruthless ways to stop them, like just killing them.
- Subverted: Mr. Razor has just beaten Hiro into a bloody mess without a word, but as soon as the hero ask about his master plan, Mr. Razor obliges.
- Double Subverted:
- "Yes, I have an excellent master plan. That I'm not going to tell you."
- Mr. Razor uses this opportunity to distract Hiro so that the snipers he employed can shoot Hiro in the back.
- Parodied: Mr. Razor is a Hypercompetent Sidekick to the Villain Ball-carrying Emperor Evulz, and is constantly pissed at his boss for refusing to follow his advice. Conversely, Evulz is always pissed at Mr. Razor for taking all the fun away.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Mr. Razor is a pathological sadist with a rage problem. As such, when he's winning he indulges in Evil Gloating and and playing with his prey, but as his Villainous Breakdown goes on he becomes quiet, ruthless and unrelenting.
- Mr. Razor is constantly about to grab the Villain Ball, but always stops himself just in time and admonishes himself.
- Averted: No antagonists are this level of ruthless... or this level of ruthless and competent, anyway.
- Enforced: The executives want to make a point that things have gotten Darker and Edgier through an Arc Villain so efficient in a fashion best described as "mechanical" that he's Nightmare Fuel.
- Lampshaded:
- "Isn't this where you tell me about your plan while gloating about your superior—*GHHHCK!*"
- "Let it be known that Mr. Razor is ruthless. He is completely without ruth."
- Invoked: Mr. Razor decided to forgoes his usual sadism because Hiro is that dangerous.
- Exploited: Hiro convinces Emperor Evulz to join in an Enemy Mine because Mr. Razor is just too dangerous for either of them to let live.
- Defied:
- The author believes the mark of a good man is one who will shoot the villain dead without a second thought. Thus, all villains in-series avert this trope by default, and are defined by impractical sadism and Pride.
- The author of the Show Within a Show in which Mr. Razor appears believes that a villain that seemingly just shows up to kill whoever is an obstacle to the plan he never explains and seems to be unstoppable because nobody knows which step it's on in an Uber-practical, matter-of-fact fashion is gonna make the audience tune out, so he does not writes Razor like that.
- Emperor Evulz refuses to hire, deploy, or even listen to Mr. Razor (and in extreme examples may even kill him) because there is something about Razor's hyper-efficient ruthlessness that makes Evulz nervous.
- Emperor Evulz orders Mr. Razor to stow it and start acting with Contractual Genre Blindness and Bond Villain Stupidity because Evulz refuses to find out how what will happen if anybody in his forces starts just killing people.
- Discussed: "Your new foe is not going to mess around, Hiro. The second Mr. Razor sees you, he’s going to go for the throat instantly and either messily or cleanly."
- Conversed: "I don't know... The Villain Makes The Plot, sure, but Mr. Razor is too damn hyper-competent for my tastes. I mean, it's obvious he's gonna win, so what's the damn point?"
- Deconstructed:
- While his ruthless aggression means he won't sabotage himself, it also makes Mr. Razor predictable. As a direct result, Hiro is able to lead him into a trap just by relying on Razor's need to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible.
- Hiro always held back against his other villains and only threw them in Cardboard Prisons because they were so incompetent he couldn't help but pity them. When presented with someone as ruthless as Razor, he throws all restraint out of the window and kills Razor in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- There is such a thing as making Mr. Razor too "no-nonsense".
- Razor's ruthlessness means that no matter the state he is in, he'll go after Hiro and the other heroes. This means attacking them even if he's in a critical state (instead of retreating and try another day), which the heroes ultimately use to their advantage to kill Razor.
- God forbid Razor ever have a change of heart as that will almost always result in some form of rejection by those he's wronged or coming with a boatload of emotional baggage over his past actions, usually both.
- People (villains and heroes) get sick and tired of Mr. Razor because his all-efficiency no-theatrics approach to evil has made him a boring villain (invincible or otherwise - and the "invincible" part can get annoying even if you're on his side because No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction and Victory Is Boring).
- Mr. Razor finds himself involved in a Tournament Arc or other situation with strict rules entirely incompatible with his usual approach, and he knows the consequences of breaking them are something he cannot handle. Entirely unused to fighting fairly, with a code and restraint, Mr. Razor struggles to keep up.
- Ironically, being "no-nonsense" ends up being Bond Villain Stupidity of its own. Blowing away Bob with whatever severe amount of overkill is needed to do the job in their initial encounter means he has shown other people too much of his hand too early (certainly there has to be something incredibly important going on to merit someone this nasty coming out of the woods, right?). And even that split second in which they gloat to the enemy that they won't gloat to the enemy (or allow the enemy to do the "This Is the Part Where... you act like a Bond villain, right?" question before shooting them) is still enough time for a counterattack to be set up against them.
- It does not matters how much Razor tries to phrase it as “the sign of a good man" and "there was no other choice" and so on, if he kills Mr. William without hesitation, attempt at offering redemption, surrender (especially if he is a cop) and so on, he is only going to be painted as some kind of sociopath.
- Mr. Razor summarily blows away Bob and only figures out two seconds later that he should have asked Bob the cancel code to that nuclear bomb Bob armed to try to dissuade Razor from summarily executing him. Oops.
- Reconstructed:
- Razor's ruthlessness is tempered by an equal or greater amount of caution. While he won't endanger himself to end a hero, he won't gloat or take his time to kill either. As a result, he is better manipulated by playing off his fear of risk rather than his bloodlust.
- Just because Razor's no-nonsense doesn't mean that he's flawless. Other factors such as a code of honor, a sense of moral decency, or just general inexperience serve as weaknesses to counterbalance his pragmatic attitude.
- The other villains in the cast decide Razor's attitude is ruining everything and they take him out. The event does provide them with an increase in reputation, though.
- However, even when critically wounded, Razor manages to outsmart Hiro and the rest of the heroes because he expected them to try and exploit his weakened state. He kills them as soon as he outsmarts them, proving his ruthlessness's efficiency.
- All the same, however, Razor's new allies know just how serious he is about switching sides and know what he can bring to the table. Some would readily welcome him into their ranks, especially if he's sincere since having a no-nonsense nemesis as a genuine good guy is very rare and hard to come by these days.
- Mr. Razor is just another tool in the box, best used for the enemies you wish just plain gone, while other times you really need to apply theatrics in your terror. And there are also times in which Mr. Razor is only capable of doing his work because the theatrics supply distraction. A good criminal mastermind knows when and where to use the tools.
- Played For Laughs:
- Mr. Razor is the Only Sane Man in a superhero spoof so off-the-wall that it makes the complete works of Monty Python's Flying Circus look like Schindler's List. He's not even being "no-nonsense", just sensitive, but everybody else treats him like one of history's greatest killjoys.
- A major Running Gag of the story is Mr. Razor looking at the latest bout of idiocy everybody else in the cast is doing, roll his eyes, and put a bullet in the biggest idiot in the room.
- There is some deliberate and extreme Mood Dissonance between the other villains in the show (colorful, giddy, overacting) and Mr. Razor (all of the "this is serious, dammit!" vibe of someone copying Zack Snyder or Christopher Nolan wrong), which is notable whenever he is right next to another villain and the switch between them is almost stroboscopic.
- A Running Gag is Mr. Razor constantly trying to be this — emphasis on trying. Every time he appears, he is walking right behind the heroes pulling out a gun intent on blowing their brains out without warning, only for something to happen and get him hurt, Wile E. Coyote-style.
- Mr. Razor is an FNG in the villain business and the other villains in the ensemble roll their eyes and groan as he approaches his craft with the bluntness of the impulsive idiot who knows nothing and tries to shield himself behind alleging practicality. For additional comedy points, the heroes of the tale also have idiot newcomers among their ranks and both old guards share complaints (and booze) about how Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb, who screw ethics and theatrics because they get easily bored.
- Mr. Razor is the dumbest soldier of the Valenti Crew but for the sake of variety the writers write him not as "so stupid he falls for everything" but as "so stupid he falls for nothing".
- Played For Drama: The plot revolves around staying one step ahead of Mr. Razor, with all sides knowing that if he gets his hands on them, then it's game over.
- Played For Horror: Mr. Razor is The Dreaded, with a Jason Voorhees-esque reputation to always know where you are and being always able to kill you in a split second no matter how prepared you believe to be.
Back to No-Nonsense Nemesis, and I am not screwing around.
