Ask a Dork: Villainous Screw-ups

“Which villains were most done-in by their own mistakes?”

Probably the best way to answer this week’s question is to cite some particularly foolish antagonists and break down exactly what they did wrong. You’ll notice that I’ve thought about this way too much.

The Empire (Star Wars)

• Not blowing up the Alliance Tantive IV ship in order to ensure the Death Star’s schematics weren’t used by the Rebellion
• Not blowing up the escape pod that left Tantive IV due to “no signs of life”
• Not training Stormtroopers on how to properly aim
• Building a Death Star with an open exhaust port
• Not destroying the Hoth Rebel base from space once the shield was down
• Going after the Millenium Falcon instead of Luke’s X-Wing Starfighter
• Thinking they could pull one over on Lando Calrissian
• Deciding to build a second Death Star, because the first worked out so well
• Using slow contractors on the Death Star 2
• Guiding the Alliance into a trap that could actually result in their success
• Thinking it was a good idea to us AT-ST Walkers in a forest
• Not recognizing the potential threat of the indigenous creatures of Endor
• Being lead by an old guy who was obsessed with powerful apprentices

Jabba the Hutt (Star Wars)

• Enslaves a Princess, who happens to be the leader of a Rebellion
• Doesn’t take a Jedi’s threat seriously
• Decides to employ two of the Jedi’s lackeys (because they won’t betray him, right?)
• Doesn’t check resumes, accidentally employes Lando Calrissian as a guard
• Allows Leia to unfreeze Han Solo from carbonite
• Keeps Leia on a leash big enough to strangle him
• Too cocky to realize the danger of facing off in front of a Sarlacc pit

Armies of Sauron and Saruman (The Lord of the Rings)

• Making their greatest strength and weakness a piece of jewllery
• Leaving Gandalf at the top of Saruman’s tower instead of killing him
• Saruman pushing Gandalf until he fell, leading to Gandalf the White
• Cutting down whole forests and not thinking the Ents would be pissed
• Being tricked by Aragorn into thinking that he had the Ring, leading to early battle
• Only defending the Dark Gate instead of patrolling all of Mordor
• Not putting at least one person on “guard duty” at Mount Doom

The Architect (The Matrix)

• More concerned with a game of chess with the Oracle than humans/machines
• Continually allows Neo to threaten the existence of the Matrix
• Unable to really affect the actions of the Machines or the renegade Agent Smith
• Mostly lets things play out as he watches in a room full of TVs

Terl (Battlefield Earth)

• Decides to take slave humans, that hate him, and make them find gold
• Teaches said slaves everything about his culture and its technology
• Gives slaves freedom to obtain gold and weapons without observation
• Doesn’t call for help when things go south

The Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz)

• Not lighting Dorothy and the Munchkins on fire when she had the chance
• Using flying monkeys to do her bidding
• Imprisoning Dorothy in a hourglass full of sand, instead of lighting her on fire
• Leaving stray pails of water around her house

These are just a few of my pics for villains done-in by their own foolishness. What are yours?