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>Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
>A potential villain who is consistently a failure or never gets the respect that they think they deserve, and may even be angry that the heroes don't take them seriously.
>They may not necessarily be entirely inept or have a laughably mild idea of what counts as villainy. Villain Decay is usually too simple an explanation. This is sometimes a relative situation, and the hero's Rogues Gallery just happens to include people more showy, better financed, or just plain scarier than him. These guys are why people are found Rooting for the Empire. A defining feature of such a villain is their gullibility: they are more often than not pitted against a Trickster who easily bamboozles them and leads them on their defeat, while it is obvious to the viewers that they should know better than listening to and believe their intended victim.
>A considerable number of them also tend to be Klutzes who are likely to fall in their own traps thanks to poor judgement, underestimating their foes to a ludicrous extent and/or failure to think ahead or pay any attention to their surroundings. And it is a usual way to showcase their stupidity by making them screw up their own plans and even die or get injured due to such mistakes in more realistic and grittier works.
>This does not mean that they don't bear animosity; that's a Punch-Clock Villain. They're probably jumping at the opportunity to outdo their rivals and the hero. But there is something about his perseverance or attitude about the whole thing that is just short of sympathetic.
>May also be a Determinator out of necessity or overlap with Draco in Leather Pants. If they get even more pathetic in regard to the hero, Unknown Rivalry looms. Just watch out, they may suddenly turn out to be a Not-So-Harmless Villain and succeed or come dangerously to succeeding with their goals in which case they will probably lose the sympathetic part and likely cross the Moral Event Horizon. After all, their appeal lies in how hopeless their attempts are.
