The Pirates Who Dont Do Anything / Literature

• Tom and Joe decide to become this type of pirate in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, because stealing is a sin. Huck isn't troubled, since he calls it "borrowing."
• The Farrow Gang and their leader "Rags" Dong Chou in Beware of Chicken are seen acting like a street gang exactly once, in their introduction, when they threaten to beat up "Loud Boy" Zang Wei before the Dueling Peaks Tournament. After their fight is defused and Rags and Loud Boy become fast friends, they just seem to be a sort of working-class social club that has a hideout, and later get legitimate jobs as security for merchant caravans, while still calling themselves a gang.
• In the Bigtime series, Captain Freebeard and his Saucy Wenches are technically pirates, but they only rob the occasional passing cruise ship, and all they ever take is food and booze so they can throw wild parties. Between the fact that the passengers of the cruise ships invariably get invited to said parties and the fact that they are almost as good at helping endangered mariners as the local Coast Guard detachment, nobody in the area considers them important enough to hunt. The cruise lines even consider them to be a tourist attraction.
• The Thieves' Guild in Jennifer Fallon's Demon Child and Hythrun Chronicles series is practically an official branch of the government, with high-ranking officials — even sympathetic ones — constantly looking the other way regarding their activities and frequently enlisting their help. Mostly justified, as the God of Thieves, Dacendaren, is a recurring character who enjoys taking an active hand in human affairs, and the Hythrun people quite reasonably want to avoid annoying him.
• Catch-22: Played for Black Comedy. All the higher-ups and plenty of the enlisted men are too obsessed with their own pet projects (Milo's black market trading, Cathcart's promotion, Schiesskopf's parades...) to care about the base, the pilots, the missions and, indeed, the war.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Zig-Zagged. Greg's mom doesn't appear to have a job, but he mentions that she runs an article in the newspaper, and it's implied she might have been a therapist (but one for younger kids if anything) but is implied to go to school. Otherwise... she's not really doing anything. Greg's dad escapes this because The Third Wheel shows a flashback of him bringing Greg to his office for Bring Your Kid to Work Day, boring Greg because he just works on his computer (although what he's doing on it is unknown). This is a justified example. The story's told from Greg's point of view. What would he know about what his parents do on a day-by-day basis?
• In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, nobody's entirely sure what Cambridge University's Regius Professor Chronotis actually teaches. The students who've taken his course discover that he avoids actually giving lectures by giving them a reading list of long out-of-print books, and then flying into a rage when they fail to find them. The Lemony Narrator calls this the "time honoured technique" of lecturers who don't want to lecture. He also avoids faculty advisor duties through Obfuscating Insanity. His chair was apparently established by an endowment from King George III — after he went mad but before people figured this out and established the Regency — to answer certain specific academic questions that have long since been resolved, so the holders of said chair have been treating it as retirement with full pay for decades.
• Discworld
  • The Compleat Discworld Atlas introduces the faraway country of the Neverlands. This is a twofer: its backstory is that it may once have been a pleasant land where over millennia the people reclaimed land from the sea and built huge earth dikes to hold back the ocean from spilling into the reclaimed farmland. Which worked just fine until the dikes broke, leaving only a chain of disconnected islands. These became a haven for pirates. Who over another few hundred years or so got lazy and devised a whole new way of separating people from money: the Neverlands now hosts the Pirate Experience Theme Park, promising exciting holidays by the sea in resorts staffed by authentic Pirates. The main location is called Barry Island — another twofer...
  • Despite the Unseen University being a university, the Wizards are never seen actually holding lectures, or indeed doing anything related to what their jobs and titles are supposed to be (except the Librarian and Archchancellor Ridicully, who has a highly specialized idea of what his job entails which generally boils down to "shout at everyone else"). In fact, at any point the idea of them actually teaching students at all is met with horror and revulsion. This is, however, an intended function of the University; for the wizards of old (and the impulse still exists), doing "something" would mean trying to kill each other and laying waste to the land in the process, so the many distractions of overly-civilized life in UU are a safety precaution.
  • Rincewind is the only one for whom this is deliberately invoked by his fellow pirates. He's made Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography with the provision he will not hold lectures, try to teach students, publish any article of research, or act like he has any sort of authority whatsoever either within or without the university. The most he can look forward to is being allowed to sit at university dinners. If he's quiet. Of course, since Rincewind didn't want the title in the first place, he's perfectly fine with this.
  • The Assassin's Guild has many students who go there for the good education and don't necessarily become real assassins. In Pyramids, Pteppic is a trained assassin who is very uncomfortable with killing anyone and never does it — although he does end up killing a pyramid and, in a way and indirectly, his country's whole godly pantheon. He's accompanied by Ptraci, a concubine whose extensive carnal knowledge is implied to be entirely theoretical.
• At the beginning of the Dragonriders of Pern series, most of Pern feels this way about the dragonriders. Since Thread hasn't fallen for four hundred years, most believe that the threat of Threadfall has ended and the dragons aren't needed anymore. At one point in the first novel, the Lord Holders and their armies actually march against Benden Weyr to bring it down. Unfortunately for Pern, the only reason Threadfall hasn't happened in four hundred years was because it was a Long Interval... which lasts only four hundred years. It turns out Threadfall has been going on for weeks by that point, but since winter was unusually harsh that year, it fell as harmless black dust. Even more unfortunately, the casualties they suffered after their first real fight against Threadfall makes it painfully clear to the dragonriders that one drastically understaffed Weyr cannot protect everyone on Pern on its own.
• In the young adult novel Dreamland Lake by Richard Peck, the narrator mentions that he used to be in a neighbourhood gang called the Oakthorpe Avengers. Since there were no rival gangs anywhere nearby, though, the Avengers never actually had to defend their territory or anything.
  Like all gangs, it was organized boredom.
• In Alethea Kontis's Enchanted, "far-to-go" Thursday ran off and married a pirate. However, her only role in the story is to send significant gifts. In the sequel, it's a different story.
• Fifty Shades of Grey:
  • We pretty much never see Christian actually being at his office managing his many businesses. The few times we do see him working, he's off doing something that's unrelated to his work, and giving orders to a subordinate over his phone.
  • Despite the text telling us repeatedly that Ana is the most brilliant of commissioning editors who even worked on her honeymoon (something that never showed up in any of the honeymoon scenes) and that she had a knack for editing even when she was Jack Hyde's personal assistant (where the only things she did were filing and typing up one letter poorly), her "job" appears to consist of letting her personal assistant Hannah make plans and set up meetings for her, going to one meeting with her colleagues and bosses, talking about meeting in person with an author, and looking at the file of a manuscript for two seconds. At no point does she do anything that a commissioning editor would normally do in the course of business.
• A Justified Trope in The Forty First Wink as the pirate crew assisting Marty is composed of a bunch of stuffed pirate toys from his childhood.
• The Godfather novel never explicitly describes any collection of protection fees by the Corleones. Income from gambling and prostitution is mentioned briefly and indirectly in the book and the film. The only attempted protection racket happens in a flashback to the 1920s (shown in film in The Godfather, part II), where Don Fanucci tries to blackmail the young Vito Corleone who realizes that Fanucci is unprotected himself, murders him, and becomes the new Don. Possibly justified since the Don and other senior members of the family would not do the dirty work themselves, leaving that to lower-ranking "soldiers." The book also states that this is partially done for reasons of security — because there are at least two layers of cutouts between The Don giving the order and the gangster committing the actual crime, even if the mafiosi is caught red-handed, the police can't tie the crime to a Corleone in a way that would stand up in court without breaking him, his boss, and his boss' boss.
• Good Omens:
  • Carmine Zubiger is a war reporter for a trashy newspaper, envied by her peers for her ability to always be where the action is (actually, she usually gets there just before it starts)... but apparently her writing is total crap. Not that this matters much, since her bosses never print any of it anyway. All she seems to do is spend her time going to places and cashing her increasingly ludicrous traveller's cheques. This is because she's actually War, killing time before Armageddon kicks in.
  • Later on, War herself grumbles about how Death is much the same. For all they're supposed to be the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse, he's not actually contributing much to the effort, just standing around and yet somehow looking really cool in the process.
• Gormenghast:
  • Most of the professors are like this, particularly the headmaster, Bellgrove. They spend most of their time in their nasty private chambers, and sleep their way through classes they're supposed to be teaching.
  • This trope is somewhat lampshaded by the idiot sisters, Cora and Clarice, the highest ranking Groans after Sepulchrave, who do absolutely nothing at all except spend their time plotting revenge for losing "power" that they never actually had. When they are essentially kidnapped by Steerpike, nobody notices.
• In The Grace of Kings, Lovable Rogue Kuni Garu is described as being a "gangster" as a young man, and while he's definitely a n'er-do-well and mooch at this point, he never actually does anything gangstery (i.e. extortion, violence, etc.). The closest he gets is one scene where a bar owner presses him about paying his tab and Kuni responds in a threatening manner- but rather than offering "protection" as a gangster would be expected to do, he instead points out that the liveliness of he and his friends helps bring in and keep customers, and their presence dissuades troublemakers from causing trouble. Later on, Kuni does become an actual bandit, but still a friendly one who aims to completely avoid deaths and injuries — and most of his ideas of what banditry involves come from fictional books about noble bandits he read in school.
• Harry Potter series,
  • Hagrid is supposed to be Hogwarts' gamekeeper and in charge of watching over the Forbidden Forest, but he spends most of his time in his hut or immediately around trying to breed strange creatures that will inevitably bring him trouble. Granted, he does know the Forbidden Forest and his denizens well, but you sometimes wonder why and how, since every time Harry, Ron and Hermione turn up, he's at his home and available to have a friendly chat around a cup of tea. However, considering the books are focused on Harry's viewpoint at school it's understandable that Hagrid's Gamekeeper role is largely offscreen since Harry's often busy with classes and homework. Subverted after he becomes the teacher for Care of Magical Creatures, since he's often shown teaching.
  • Professor Albus Dumbledore holds three positions across the books, Headmaster of Hogwarts School, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. He's only shown acting as Headmaster for the vast majority of his page-time across the books. The only thing Dumbledore does involving his post as Supreme Mugwump, is an off-page event where he made a speech announcing Voldemort's return...which got him voted out of his post by the Ministry. The only times Dumbledore is even shown with the Wizengamot are a flashback where he's only an observer on the trials and while serving as Harry's defense attorney in book five... after he'd been removed from his post as Chief Warlock. Admittedly, it's not clear what the duties of Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump actually entail and they might be purely honorary posts.
• Haruhi Suzumiya: Though it happens occasionally, it's pretty rare to see the SOS Brigade actually hunt down any supernatural entities. Justified in that it's the leader of the SOS Brigade that is keeping them away from real entities. Her common sense gets in the way most of the time. At least according to either Itsuki or Yuki, the point of nearly every member of the SOS Brigade is to either keep her away from these entities, or to just observe her.
• At the end of Hush, Hush, Patch becomes Nora's guardian angel. In Crescendo, this means he spends his time...following her around and making out with her. Which he did anyway. Actual fighting of evil is pretty absent, however.
• In Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Britain is host to a number of societies of magicians who never cast spells and, in fact, consider the suggestion they might do so quite ungentlemanly. Magic faded centuries ago, so modern-day magicians have become more like magical historians rather than attempting magic they think is no longer possible.
• The Cultural Research Club in Kokoro Connect doesn't do actually do much cultural research. Their advisor notices this and makes them do a project for a School Festival, but the rest of the time they just hang out in the clubroom.
• The Tribulation Force in the Left Behind series is supposed to be the Resistance to Carpathia's One World Government. Their track record after seven years is precisely one assassination attempt, not counting Hattie and Chaim. Buck and Rayford's roles as The Moles in Carpathia's organization serve only a narrative function as witnesses for the audience to the global events of the tribulation rather than any particular kind of functional espionage. Plus, Buck supposedly a great investigative reporter never does any investigating, except at the very beginning of the first book, and damn all reporting. Even the one time he does investigate he takes a bribe to cover up the conspiracy he uncovered rather than reveal it (it's how he gets his insider job with Carpathia, which he also never seems to do).
• In Joan Hess's Maggody mysteries, the ladies' Missionary Society claim to be a charitable organization working to promote Christian values by sending Bibles abroad. In practice, their most typical achievements are to hold local potlucks and stroke Mrs. Jim Bob's ego.
• The Marvellous Land of Snergs: Despite being referred to and identifying herself as a witch, Mother Meldrum is hardly seen engaging in actual witchcraft.
• Old Kingdom: In the prequel Clariel, Belatiel is very frustrated that his great-uncle, Abhorsen Tyriel, does virtually nothing required of his post, instead spending most of his time hunting. In fact, Tyriel's two immediate predecessors as Abhorsen also spent most of their time hunting. Bel also suspects his cousin Yannael, Tyriel's daughter and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, of never having read The Book of the Dead or walked in Death, both vital to the Abhorsen's job. When Tyriel dies in a riding accident, Bel discovers that Yannael was never the Abhorsen-in-Waiting at all. He was.
• The pirates in Peter Pan don't get up to any actual piracy within the story; they just seem to spend all their time trying to kill the Lost Boys and the Indians. Justified in-universe as Neverland is formed from the collective imaginations of children, so the pirates (and Indians) are only a manifestation of children's playground games.
• The pirates in Gideon Defoe's The Pirates! series. In An Adventure With Whaling, they actually realize this — one of the money-making activities they try is "actual pirating". Alas, they find it's just not in character for them.
• Rebuild World: Discussed. Colbert gets mocked by his former Private Military Contractor squad mates for being a hunter in name only thanks to his reliance upon underworld schemes like policing a Boxed Crook or being the Cleanup Crew. This is because Colbert is a Shell-Shocked Veteran after having had his arms devoured by a monster gave him a Trauma Button. Eventually he ends up Facing Your Fears and returning to normal hunting.
• The Riftwar Cycle has Helbinor the Abstainer, the god who doesn't do anything. It's enough to drive a theologian to drink.
• Sandokan:
  • The Tigers of Mompracem stopped raiding commerce sometime between The Pirates of Malaysia and The Two Tigers, resuming in The King of the Sea only because the Royal Navy decided to kick them out of Mompracem. After The King of the Sea they don't do the pirate job anymore save for a single boarding in Return to Mompracem.
  • Sandokan is implied to be a Dayak, but never cut a single head.
• The title character of Sebastian by Anne Bishop is an incubus. Apparently. He does apparently have incubus powers, and is called a demon multiple times, but the way he's written, he's a normal guy.
• The fiends of HELL ^translation  Heurystyczna Ekspozytura Logiczno-Logistyczna, or a Heuristic Logical-Logistic Expositure in Selerbergiada short stories don't really seem to do anything besides recruiting new members. You'd expect, being demons, they'd at least torture someone or engage in debauchery, or at least do some paper-pushing, but (while they do have a casual attitude towards sex) HELL is pretty much indistinguishable from management of an earthly corporation. Complete with Cloudcuckoolander IT guys.
• In Sherlock Holmes, Watson's portrayal as a doctor is usually limited to giving him an office, having him know a throwaway character in a hospital, and the like. He does save a client from poisoning once, but all in all, when Doyle inflicts him with the overriding compulsion to go to the bedside of a person he's never met while he's in the middle of something important, it rings false.
  • Of course, Doyle himself was a medical doctor who spent almost all his time doing non-medical things, in his case writing.
  • Professor James Moriarty is an interesting example, an inversion, perhaps. He was a respected professor but got booted for a scandal leaving him to pretend he makes his living as an army coach while he's actually running his criminal empire, making the title more of a courtesy than fact.
• The omnipresent, prestigious and numerous Swordbearer Caste in the Spaceforce (2012) books are highly trained warriors — but the Taysan Empire has been at peace for centuries, if not millennia within its own borders, and apart from a bit of royal bodyguarding, it's not clear what the Taysan swordbearers actually do.
• The Tale Of The Two Bad Mice: Parodied. It's outright stated that Jane, despite being designated as "the cook", never did any cooking because being a sentient doll in a dollhouse, all of her food is pre-made anyway and despite being sentient she still never has to eat it.
• In Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, fairy godmother Madame Bella notices that the supposed evil sorceress Arachnia seems more interested in wearing a lot of black and swanning dramatically around her spooky castle than in actually, you know, being evil, and recruits her to the side of good. Arachnia then invokes this trope; by acting outwardly mean and going hard on the aesthetic, she can hold down the narrative spot marked "evil sorceress" in any ongoing Tale, but without the danger a real villain would bring.
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. The main characters are Musketeers who only go to war once, and it's a brief interlude in the story. Even in that sequence, they spend much of it trying to have a picnic on the battlefield rather than fight. The rest of the time, they're off getting into adventures and brawling with their rivals on the Cardinal's guard. Ironically, this means that they hardly ever actually use the muskets that they're named for.
• Throne of Glass: At least in the first book, master assassin Celaena Sardothien doesn't do much actual assassination. Having been in prison for a year may have had something to do with that.
• Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love features Single-Minded Twins Lapis Lazuli Long and Lorelei Lee Long, who are Opposite Sex Clones of the story's protagonist Lazarus Long. As they are unrepentant hellions and true inheritors of their brother's roguish nature, they decide at one point to grow up to become Space Pirates. In the quasi-sequel The Number of the Beast, they are introduced in that capacity and share a rotating captaincy of their vessel, with summary authority over "mutineers". However, at no point are they shown to perform any actual piracy, and happily defer to Lazarus in matters of his authority. Toward the end of that novel and into The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, they meet up with a second set of redheaded twins, male, who join them and reputedly do inspire them to embark on actual piracy, but again, this takes place entirely offpage and Lazarus appears more or less resigned to whatever fate they bestow upon themselves.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Downplayed example with the titular Ravenor. He's as diligent and productive as any other competent Inquisitor, but as a member of the Ordo Xenos, he should be focused on protecting the Imperium from aliens. Instead, he spends the entire trilogy hunting down human criminals and Chaos-worshippers, a job more suited to the Ordo Hereticus.
  • Ravenor's mentor Eisenhorn is little better in this regard. Most of the villains in his trilogy are human heretics, but at least the first book had its villains making a deal with Chaos-worshipping xenos to further their goals.
• In the few first books of the Wild Cards series, the New York Mafia is depicted as a bunch of affable Italian gentlemen in dark suits who are more concerned about running Italian restaurants, holding family reunions, playing snooker with The Consigliere and having fun with call girls than, you know, being scary gangsters running a criminal empire.

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