Obstructive Bureaucrat/Playing With

Basic Trope: A bureaucrat who hinders the protagonists with paperwork. ""I'll put them through so much red tape, they'll come out looking like Deadpool.""
 * Straight: Alice is working for an alien hunting agency. When she needs a weapon, she has to fill out a form and give it to quartermaster Bob first.
 * Exaggerated: Even though there is currently an Eldritch Abomination rampaging in the headquarters, Bob insists that Alice fills out a weapon requisition form before she takes a gun and shoots it.
 * Paperwork is required for every activity and use of resources. Bob stops Alice outside the restroom to ask if she's got the proper papers.
 * Justified: The organization is very big and its supply of weapons is severely limited. The bureaucracy has to make sure that agents only carry weapons when they have a good reason to do so.
 * People have been stealing/not returning supplies, so they need to keep careful track of where everything is.
 * Inverted: Bob is frequently bending the rules and uses his influence to make Alice' job easier.
 * Subverted: When Alice explains that she doesn't have time for filling out forms right now, Bob cooperates and gives her a weapon without the paperwork.
 * Double Subverted: But then Bob complains to Alice' boss that Alice took a weapon without permission and demands that she is punished.
 * Parodied: Bob puts his big red DENIED stamp on Alice' weapon requisition form with an Evil Laugh.
 * Bob is actually helpful most of the time, but Alice is furious when he asks for her quick signature on a form.
 * Deconstructed: Bob has obsessive compulsive disorder. It causes him severe emotional pain when something isn't in order.
 * The oppressive government requires paperwork for everything to help keep citizens under control.
 * Reconstructed: Bob's obsession is the only thing which holds the extremely disorganized organization together.
 * Zig Zagged: Bob will sometimes be pretty lenient and at other times very nitpicking about following proper procedures.
 * Averted: The organization avoids wasting the time of their agents with unnecessary paperwork and tries their best to provide them with everything they request without asking questions.
 * Enforced: Due to a restricted special effect budget the writers have to find a way to make the characters use their flashy equipment less often. So they introduce an obstructive bureaucrat who stops them from using it.
 * Lampshaded: Alice complains that Bob's obstructive bureaucracy is a bigger danger for the organization than all the Scary Dogmatic Aliens who try to destroy it. Nobody listens to her.
 * Invoked: Bob is hired when the organization notices that it needs more stringent management to deal with Alice' abuse of resources.
 * Eager to do his part in taking down the villain's organization, Bob the bureaucrat infiltrates it and makes the villains' lives hell with his obstructiveness.


 * Exploited: After the villain broke out of prison he takes his time, because he knows that it will take days before Alice gets the authorization from Bob to pursue him.
 * Defied: Alice quits the organization and works for it as an independent contractor to avoid Bob's bureaucracy.
 * Discussed: While the organization grows bigger and bigger, Alice fears that she will soon be unable to do her job because of the red tape involved.

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