Lean and Mean/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An evil character is very thin.

  • Straight: Evil Overlord Smith is one of the skinnier characters on the show.
  • Exaggerated: Overlord Smith is so thin that he should be dead of starvation, but he doesn't seem to suffer from it.
  • Justified: Overlord Smith is wary of poisoning from his enemies, and so refuses to eat large amounts.
  • Inverted: Villainous Glutton
    • Alternatively, The Hero Will is very skinny.
  • Subverted: Overlord Smith was thin in his first appearance, but it turns out he'd just been through a long and difficult journey where food was scarce. Soon, he returns to a normal weight.
    • Smith turns out to not be as villainous as first thought, and is at worse an Anti-Hero...
  • Double Subverted: Even though it's been months after that near-starvation incident, Overlord Smith stays as thin as he first was.
  • Parodied: Overlord Smith is drawn as a stick figure among the otherwise normal cast.
  • Deconstructed: Overlord Smith spends so long obsessing over his evil scheme that he never eats; his health is affected dramatically and he begins to suffer from Sanity Slippage.
  • Reconstructed: Overlord Smith realizes that failing health will not help him accomplish World Domination, so he adopts healthy eating habits.
    • Being a beanpole is just Overlord Smith's natural build. He eats well, but his metabolism burns everything it gets.
  • Zig Zagged: Overlord Smith's weight seems to be different every time he shows up.
  • Averted: Overlord Smith has an average weight.
  • Enforced: They wanted a Villainous Glutton character, but obesity campaigners protested.
  • Lampshaded: "Wow, does the Evil Overlord ever eat?"
  • Invoked: After his rise to power, Overlord Smith makes sure to eat less to gain that proper evil look.
  • Defied: Even though he's now an Evil Overlord, Smith knows it's healthiest to mantain a healthy weight, and makes sure to do so.
  • Discussed: "You're the Evil Chancellor? Huh. I was expecting someone skinnier."
  • Conversed: "Yes, I'm skinny. No, that doesn't make me a bad person- what is this, a movie?"

Back to Lean and Mean. And what, can't you eat something every now and again?