Is there a way to make Mooks dangerous even though the heroes keep beating them?

This is something I've been wondering about: the purpose of Mooksis to be easily defeated enemies for the heroes to mow down in waves.

On occasion, they might pose a challenge when first appearing, and there are also Elite Mooks, but for the most part they are there to get beaten.

My question is, is it possible to keep them legitimately dangerous even as the heroes grow stronger? I'd like the idea of even end game heroes still struggling to deal with the rank and file, sort of as a way to show that they are constantly in a rough place and at a disadvantage. I think it'd also make the victories over them and the times where they do manage to take out large numbers of them more special.

What do you guys think?

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I think the start is to get out of the “they're mooks, obviously they are” mentality. Start treating them as actual characters, even make them actual characters if you still haven't, write at least one scene of their fight from their perspective (write it for yourself, not for the readers).

I feel the very start of where the problems of mooks not being able to accomplish anything forms is in the fact that the writers do not see them as anything above disposable meatbags, and they have not tried to see it from the “mooks'” perspective, so when it comes to giving them a victory they aren't prepared for it in any way and cannot put it to paper.

One of my own settings has “mooks”. They may not have bested the hero party, and they may never really have stood a chance statistics- wise, but they did force them to retreat a few times, they managed to almost take out one of them with a lucky shot (i.e. got hurt, lost consciousness from the shock, and had to be carried out as they escaped and then tended to), and are clearly shown (or told, depending on what it is) to have accomplished some other sometimes even vital stuff.

Think of it this way: instead of mooks, you have, say, a brigade of SmartGuys who have to fight. Yes, it's not their specialty and they may not be the best at it, but they're clearly competent people who are simply outside of their league in that particular scenario but still going to try and, if luck allows, they'll score a few points too.

Depending on what type they are, you can start by having them take out some mauve shirts, red shirt and even some civilians to show that while they may be mooks, they're still a huge and serious threats for people at large and anyone not affected by plot armor.

If you're writing prose fiction then that works to you're advantage as you can get into the characters' heads more clearly, making it clear that even if they're mowing down mooks by the hundreds, it's far harder than it looks, and one small mistake would spell certain death for them. Stamina and attrition should also play a major part. Struggling against even Elite Mooks could stretch the suspension of disbelief pretty big when it comes time to fight an actual major villain, but having them be exhausted from fighting said mooks would still keep the tension while making the mooks actual obstacles and keep your heroes' credibility intact in the process.

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Instead of having the mooks be an ineffectual bunch that couldn't hit the side wall of a barn from inside the barn - like the Imperial Stormtroopers and every mook Arnold Schwarznegger's gone up against, make it clear that the mooks are competent and that the only reason the heroes prevail is by taking sensible precautions against getting shot - real cover rather than Plot Armor, evasion, working around them etc. Show the heroes actually treating them as a valid threat and making plans to mitigate that threat.

If the heroes can just run blithely in front of a half dozen mooks armed with submachineguns and not get hit by so much as a stray shot, it screams "these guys aren't really dangerous". If the heroes see armed mooks and think "fuck, let's lie low until they go past and then sneak around the back" it says "they are a real risk."

Too often, it's not just the fact that the heroes can outfight them, it's that they can practically disregard them until they're ready to fight because no matter what the mooks do, they can't possibly touch the heroes. That makes them look like nothing but a false threat.

When the mooks never sound alarms, always wait their turn to fight, couldn't shoot a city bus if they placed the muzzle against the side of it, always do stupid things and the heroes unfailingly act as if that's how they expect them to behave, then they'll never be a credible threat.

You need to ask yourself what purpose making the Mooks constantly threatening would serve. They mostly are a staple, and the Necessary Weasel of the action genre (in whatever medium), which is more about the journey than the destination. We all know that The Ahnold will prevail in the end, it's always about how entertaining he will look in the process. Showy Invincible Hero is a thing when talking about Mooks' relationship with heroes. Making them a constant threat would strip the action story of its sense of progression, even of Character Development, which in Action genre or in stories with action genre elements is often expressed through The Hero's growing asskicking skill.

Even in stories that are not "pure" action, you still need some faceless unskilled goons just for them to act as a baseline when the real threat comes in.

Spiral out, keep going.

The only problem is that all of those things make the story seem formulaic and break Willing Suspension of Disbelief or at the very least leave you wondering what sort of stupid "super villain" sends out their forces starting with the cream puffs and working up rather than just sending out the elite ones first and dealing with those pesky heroes for good right at the outset. Contractually Obligated Genre Blindness, Idiot Ball and Too Dumb to Live seem to apply to all of these villains and we're supposed to forget all that and view them as a credible threat, when really they've done nothing but prove themselves inept at their jobs by hiring people unfit for the task to which they're put.

I think less "Necessary Weasel" and more "cliché" - YMMV, of course.

Or, simply, have heroes keep beating the mooks...at a steadily heavier cost. Have it so that the mooks may be defeated, but they never go down easy and always leave some damage to the heroes.

Or, maybe the mooks can be defeated by the heroes...but to their weaker allies and precious ones (family members, friends, etc) they are pretty much a bunch of death sentences.

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Honestly, if the fight scenes are well-choreographed, it's not that much of a problem. And the inverse is also true: too challenging enemies question the competence of our heroes.

Thing is, Mooks are a trope with fairly strict definition, used in quite the specific circumstances. They are:

1. Antagonists without personality;
2. Equal or more in numbers to the cast of heroes fighting them;
3. Not more skillful in a fight than the heroes;
4. Serve mainly to provide cheap and guilt-free entertainment for the audience;

Remove any of those - and the Mooks cease to be the Mooks.

And Mooks are harmless not really because of their lack or skill or some other logical weakness. it's because of the very structure of the story they find themselves in. The Heroes fighting Mooks are always protected by the Plot Armor. They are not in as much a danger as the hordes of enemies they're fighting. Whatever injuries they might sustain is incomparable to the bodycount of faceless goons they are racking up. You can lower the Mooks' numbers and raise up their skills, like Taken and Bourne movies did, add some level of realism to the fights, but it's not a meaningful change. Those movies are still action franchises centered around a protagonist.

Guess which heroes lack the Plot Armor? You can go the war movie route (or even Shingeki No Kyojin route). Set the story from the POV of a squad of regular soldiers (or their equivalent), with all the realism it implies: the chips are down, Anyone Can Die, you can get PTSD just from being in a high-stress combat situation, War Is Hell... And with war movies it's not always just about the fighting. It can give a certain thematic depth to your story. There is a slight problem with this (not counting the fact that it's really hard to pull such story off): you'll be going through the heroes very quickly.

edited 11th Apr '18 9:51:21 PM by Millership

Spiral out, keep going.

Just a thought, maybe after the heroes beat them, the big bad could train them more, so they get stronger too? And possibly have them beat the heroes once or twice because they became stronger, which could provoke the heroes into doing some training themselves? Just a few thoughts on the topic.

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I do think the occasional victory for Team Rocket plan would work, make it clear these guys are danger even if they beat, make it so the heroes don't always win.

You can also use a lampshade and deconstruction of the "mook"-trope itself with dose of Reality ensues.

If you have for example a Hero who has beaten the mooks constantly and only faced a challenge against Elite Mooks, he could just get overconfident. Being so sure of victory that he starts playing around with them for a bit, not taking normal precautions "because they are mooks anyway". Let him play a bit Mook Horror Show, maybe show it from their perspective for a moment.

And then have him pay for it, teaching him (and the audience) a lesson.

The martial Arts Master who gets a blow to the head and is suddenly dizzy, not realizing what exactly happened. Getting a few additional blows in the time he takes to realize and suddenly finding himself wounded and weakened in a crowd of enemys he walked into because he dismissed them earlier.

The sniper who didn't take enough precautions to hide himself, taking a bullet in the Shoulder of one of these pesky little soldiers he mowed down, because he shot five of them from the same position and didn't think about them realising that fast enough, now unable to steady the rifle and bleeding profusely.

Have the Hero realise their mistake in underestimating the opposition and you have a good chance that the audience will go along in realizing it (and both being more on guard when meeting the mooks from then on out)