Examples Do Not Match Description: Bigger Bad

It seems the definition of Bigger Bad varies. The article says that it is the most powerful evil force, but not behind the conflict or very connected to the plot. However, the examples use it in a way similar to The Man Behind the Man, even though the article states it is not. In fact, it says to contrast The Man Behind the Man.

What action do suggest is taken?

Cut examples where the more powerful villain is clearly controlling the more visible antagonists; that's The Man Behind the Man. If the Big Bad is nominally in the Bigger Bad's service, but operating almost totally autonomously in pursuit of their own goals (think Indiana Jones villains, particularly in Raiders of the Lost Ark or Last Crusade- they're technically working for Hitler, but mostly doing their own thing and Indy doesn't need to fight or even directly confront Hitler to resolve the plot), or is completely independent, then keep them.

There's one part that confuses me. I added an example where I cited a villain as a Bigger Bad because he was The Man Behind The Man's boss, and was not involved in the plot at all aside from handing the manipulator her targets of who to manipulate. Is that just The Man Behind the Man squared or is that a true Bigger Bad?

I can understand the confusion with The Man Behind the Man: It's easy to assume that Bigger Bad is analogous to, say, Always a Bigger Fish.

As the guy who launched the trope, my rule of thumb is- if you can remove the character from the story entirely and/or replace them with an impersonal force, they're the Bigger Bad. If their presence is essential to the story, but they're superior to the apparent Big Bad, they're The Man Behind the Man. If they're both the main villain and most powerful evil, they're just the Big Bad. Does that help (I know it can get a little confusing)?

Well than my example would qualify as a Bigger Bad for most of the story, up until the arc that he becomes a Big Bad. (It's Hades from Fairy Tail, for anyone who wants to know) Thank you for clarifying it.

Here, to help out, I'll create a scenario.

- The Big Bad of series has an evil scheme. It could be to gain favor with the Bigger Bad.

The Bigger Bad is an evil force, but this scheme is completely outside of that. They aren't the ones planning this or such, but their mere existence is what causes the Big Bad to exist in first place.

A second scenario I can think of. For example, I'll use a Big Bad kicked upstairs style situation. The Big Bad has been put in prison in Season 1. In Season 2, a new force has shown up who is inspired by the Big Bad. The former Big Bad is uninterested in this new group and biding his time. He has now become a Bigger Bad.

Your antagonist wants to burn your house down. The police won't come so you beat the arsonist yourself. But the arsonist was paid by your bus driver because he was smuggling something and knew you were going to snitch. The Bus driver is the cause of the conflict. Why your city is so messed up in the first place? Because of the Ruthless Foreign Gangsters and President Evil. Those guys are the worst in the setting, but neither of them is out to get you personally, the Bus driver was the Man Behind The Man and the Big Bad of your story, despite being a small fry in the world as whole.

Canon Example? Marvel comics. Hulk was the main threat in World War Hulk obviously but the one who kicked the whole thing off was Miek. Of coarse Lucifer himself was on Earth during World War Hulk, obviously a much bigger threat, but he was up to unrelated things.

Complicating this issue is the fact that Bigger Bad can be subverted by the revelation that the previously established powerful and seemingly irrelevant character is The Man Behind the Man, and thus actually The Big Bad. The character was never really the Bigger Bad, but the audience was lead to believe that that was the case. Long-running works can pick up Big Bads (usually being The Man Behind the Man) that survive and go on to be Bigger Bads for future arcs...until they turn out to be behind someone else two seasons later.

Maybe we shouldn't have a page that's just for "villains who are greater than the big bad but not affiliated with him and have little role in the story." Why don't we expand it to "Independent" Villain, so as to include people who might be less prominent than the big bad but still aren't connected? That way people won't confuse it with the man behind the man.

EditThat's the point.

edited 19th Aug '11 1:01:31 PM by Cider

But Independent Villain is a lot more general then this trope is.

Trope launcher here; basically, after giving it some thought, I think there are really three distinct subtropes of Bigger Bad. As follows:

Type I: The Independent Bigger Bad. This character is more powerful than the Big Bad, and otherwise unconnected to them at all. They may or may not show up in person, but rarely have anything to do with the main plot. Example- the Necromancer from The Hobbit.

Type II: Power Source. This character (often an impersonal force) is feeding the Big Bad power, but doesn't really have any say (or particular interest) in what they do with it, and is therefore distinct from The Man Behind the Man, who actually controls the apparent Big Bad. Example- The Dark Side from Star Wars.

Type III: Nominal Superior. The Big Bad nominally answers to this character, but is really doing their own thing with little to no direct oversight- similar to Dragon with an Agenda, except that in this case the character with the agenda is the focus of the plot, not the person they're working for. In most cases, this Bigger Bad is there to make the story feel like part of a larger conflict and/or to provide the Big Bad with a source of resources and mooks to draw on. Example- Adolf Hitler in Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

All three of these types share the defining traits of the Bigger Bad-they're more powerful/influential than the Big Bad, and they don't have to be defeated or even confronted for the story to be resolved.

edited 19th Aug '11 1:10:03 PM by MasterGhandalf

I support the new approach of three types above. It helps to really clear up the examples and makes it clear what the different types are.

Question about a possible example: in Usagi Yojimbo Lord Hijiki is consistently presented as the biggest and most consistent threat to the shogunate and the political status quo of the book's setting (early Tokugawa Japan). His involvement in the story is usually via his agents, be it Lord Hebi, his second-in-command; his army; or the Neko Ninja, independent operators whom he semi-secretly sponsors—he himself does not usually appear in stories, and if he does, he gets no dialogue, and his face is hidden from view: creator Stan Sakai has gone on the record about his desire to play him as a Sauron figure, in that you can feel his influence behind the actions of others, even when he himself does nothing of note. All of that would make me mark him under Bigger Bad, except that in flashbacks, we've seen that he personally murdered protagonist Miyamoto Usagi's father, and provoked and was personally present at the Battle of Sekigahara Plain, the event that sets the entire premise of the series in motion; there, he personally gave Usagi his trademark scar (a fact that neither character give much importance to). However, this, along with some Early-Installment Weirdness, is the extent of his direct involvement in the events of the series—since then, we haven't seen him interact with any characters at all.

Further complicating things is that, if he's not the Big Bad, then there's no one under him who really fits the bill—the best choice is a villain who is completely unrelated to Hijiki and is more of an Archenemy figure, since his effect on the larger world is rather minimal. Some guidance, please?

edited 20th Aug '11 3:08:40 PM by DoKnowButchie

Now that we have The Heavy, I'm not sure we even need Bigger Bad anymore. Looking at Bigger Bad, a lot of the examples don't seem to cite a relationship between a Bigger Bad and a Big Bad, but between a Big Bad and The Heavy. An exception could probably be made in the case where the Bigger Bad is a nonsentient force, E.g. The Dark Side from Star Wars.

I don't see the two tropes as contradictory at all; to use the Star Wars example, for the Original Trilogy Darth Vader is The Heavy (most visible, memorable, and direct villain), Emperor Palpatine is the Big Bad (ultimate villain of the storyline, responsible directly or indirectly for almost all of the conflict), and the dark side is the Bigger Bad (the ultimate evil of the setting, but divorced personally from the action- in this case, because it's not a "person"). I also think it's worth noting that The Heavy can also be the Big Bad (though it's at least as likely to be The Dragon), while Big Bad and Bigger Bad are never the same within a single work, since if the most powerful evil in the world is also the main villain, they're "just" the Big Bad (though they can overlap across multiple works- for example, Sauron goes from the Bigger Bad of The Hobbit" to the Big Bad of Lord Of The Rings'').

For another way to look at it, the Bigger Bad is often less a character and more a feature of the setting- they don't have much if any effect on the main plot, but the fact that they're out there deepens the world and often mythology (and, as in the case of Sauron, can be used as a Sequel Hook).

Agree with Master Ghandalf here. The Heavy is more likely to be The Dragon than the Big Bad, and the three types of Bigger Bad given a few posts ago make complete sense.