Basic Trope: The boss is significantly weaker than their minions.
- Straight:
- Alice is a Mad Scientist who produces bots to mine resources for her inventions. The bots can shoot laser beams to cut stuff and have superhuman strength. She has complete control of them.
- Bob is a Emperor, who is not a fighter, so his elite minions do all the hard work for him.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is an elderly, Delicate and Sickly woman. Meanwhile, her masterpiece is a sentient Humoungous Mecha who can ravage entire cities.
- Bob is an old emperor who can't even stand up, his elite minions are the best warriors in the entire empire.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is not particularly fit or combat-trained, but she's not entirely defenseless if an emergency arises. Her bots are specialized in resource-mining, so they do have superhuman strength but they are small and, in combat situations, rely on Zerg Rush.
- Alice is easily capable on her own in terms of combat but her mooks are clearly on another level of skill
- Bob knows how to use a sword, but he is not at the level of his best soldiers.
- Justified:
- Alice's robots are powered by a hydraulic system, something that inherently grants strength above what human beings can accomplish.
- Alice's engineering endeavors have left her with little time to train and get a Charles Atlas Superpower to keep up with her creations.
- Bob doesn't need to fight so he has no combat experience.
- Bob got his position as emperor due to his leadership skills combined with his wealth, so he didn't need physical strength to get his position.
- Inverted: Rank Scales with Asskicking.
- Subverted:
- Shortly after perfecting her bots, Alice builds a Powered Armor for herself. Since the suit is combat-oriented, she's way stronger and more durable than her bots — she can fly and has a wide repertoire of weapons.
- Bob turns out to be a skilled warrior.
- Double Subverted:
- Seeing that her bots get easily destroyed by her enemies and that she has better things to do than guard them in her suit, Alice decides to create an elite squad of combat bots. They are an enhanced, automated version of her suit, as well as way bigger than a person.
- Even if he is a skilled warrior, he is still weaker than his elite minions.
- Parodied: A legion of enormous, muscular barbarians defend their leader, a caterpillar.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice can take her own bots in a fight but neither is stronger.
- Enforced: Conservative executives don't want a smart female protagonist who is also an Action Girl, so they forced the show's producer to make Alice this trope or to make her dumb and put someone else in charge.
- Lampshaded: “Hey minions! You’re all way stronger than your boss! Why don’t you just kick their butt and make your own rules?”
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Position of Literal Power.
- Discussed: “These minions are pretty strong, considering how weak their boss is. I guess a weak ruler needs strong underlings to protect them.”
- Conversed: ???
Back to Weak Boss, Strong Underlings
