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Basic Trope: A villain reveals they're much more badass than previously thought.

  • Straight: Dracone is considered fairly harmless throughout the world. However, he proves he's much more dangerous than previously thought by completely routing an opposing army.
  • Exaggerated: Dracone goes from harmless comic relief to world-destroying psychopath in the span of about a few seconds.
  • Downplayed:
    • Dracone is a fairly pacifistic minion of Emperor Evulz and he's more likely to open the door for the heroes than he is to try and attack them. However, when the heroes try to kill his boss, he proves himself to be quite a Combat Pragmatist and is able to seriously injure the heroes long enough for his boss to escape.
    • Dracone was already a cruel bully, but when his victims have finally had enough and stand up to him, he promptly pulls out a knife and stabs them to death.
  • Justified:
  • Implied: The camera continuously lingers on Dracone and ominous music plays on the moments he's not being funny.
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted: It was temporary - he's really not that dangerous. (See Big Bad Wannabe for the most likely way of doing this.)
  • Double Subverted: At least, that's what he wanted you to think.
  • Parodied: No matter what Dracone does, be it taking over the world, blowing up a city, or anything else, no one stops thinking of him as the Harmless Villain.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • He doesn't seem that dangerous, until he succeeds in taking over his country. Then he uses his newfound power to create several homes for children orphaned during his bloody rise to power. The heroes decide not to fight against the benevolent ruler, until the first inspection day at the orphanage, when he reveals that he Eats Babies. And once they have finished taking the babies away, Evulz arrives and pretty much whips Dracone into being his minion.
    • Dracone becomes the most over-dramatic, intense, most dangerous villain the world has ever seen... and then his favorite show comes on and has to cancel being evil, and decides to reschedule the world domination plan to next week, but he has terrible taste in TV shows and the heroes beat him up for that instead. And steal his ice cream.
  • Averted:
    • No one thinks of Dracone as harmless.
    • Alternatively, Dracone never becomes a threat to anyone.
  • Enforced: The writers are pressured by the executives to make the once harmless Dracone more dangerous.
  • Lampshaded: "I know you thought I wasn't dangerous, but I'm not so harmless!"
  • Invoked:
    • Dracone intentionally makes people underestimate him.
    • Alternatively, Dracone gets sick of not being taken seriously, and decides to do something about it.
  • Exploited: Emperor Evulz, realizing that Dracone has the potential to be more dangerous than he is, sends him out to perform a vital mission. The heroes underestimate Dracone and either send a B-list team (assuming he'll be a pushover) which gets wiped out, or they don't send anyone (assuming whatever he's doing isn't worth reacting to). Either way, Evulz gets what he was after.
  • Defied: "We must consider every threat, even one that seems as silly as Dracone."
  • Discussed: "Yeah, he's not so dangerous. He's just...whoa, did he just kill that guy?"
  • Conversed: "Did that Harmless Villain just kill that guy? Whoa!!"
  • Deconstructed: The nations of the world were entirely unprepared for Dracone to rise to power - they just didn't see it coming. As a result, he's able to rule unchecked.
  • Reconstructed: ...But because of how unobstructed his ascension is, Dracone deems the nations harmless, and what goes around comes around.

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