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Loyal, true, and sworn to stay by your side.
It's a popular sentiment that "no man is an island".
The gist is that people don't exist in isolation, and everyone supports and is supported by
a broader social structure that both distributes burdens and strengthens the community overall.
Where an island is an entirely enclosed and theoretically self-sufficient environment,
this does not apply so easily to people, who are much more readily accessible by their
neighbors and often rely on this proximity for mental health and physical survival.
The universal applicability of this principle is one of those things people keep stress-testing,
because while being part of something greater has a lot of structural benefits and sounds
all-around nice on paper, it's well-documented that while individual people are pretty smart,
groups of people are pretty stupid because the pressure of the group makes it artificially
difficult for the members of the group to use their own judgment to decide what they
should actually do.
But despite these downsides, humans are very social animals, to the point that isolation
is well-documented to be incredibly bad for our mental health.
As annoying and confusing as people can be, people need people or they stop acting like
people.
In fiction, this principle is on somewhat shakier ground.
While characters usually have friends, family or some kind of social circle, many characters
are fundamentally defined by very isolating characteristics.
Chosen ones, runaway princesses, escaped government experiments, brooding loners, Last Of Their
Kinds - characters of all stripes are often designed under a pressure to make them unique,
and this typically creates characters who on some level stand apart from their supporting
cast.
Writers often construct scenarios wherein only our hero can do this Important Plot Thing
for some Inherent Reason - prophecies or bloodlines or choosey magical artifacts lock the plot
progression for everyone but Our Hero, and no matter what friendships or complex interpersonal
bonds they've forged, after a certain point they Must Go Alone.
In these stories, the character's social bonds often seem rather…
ephemeral.
They're a pleasant distraction from the plot, but when things get serious, our hero is alone,
and nobody can change that.
Our hero is an island, and sometimes the needs of the plot blockade their trade routes with
their fellow protagonists.
And in a story, this honestly works all right.
A main character's arc is usually about themselves, so it makes sense that they'd be in the spotlight
when things are getting serious, even if it means eschewing the social bonds that are
so vital in the real world.
But sometimes that's not true at all.
Sometimes a character's bond with another character is the absolute most important thing
about them, and the care and support they show them is absolutely vital to their arc.
This character barely exists in isolation, and is almost entirely defined by their connection
to and reliance on another character.
It is in this intense space of characterization that we find several love interests, a treatise
on codependency - and the trope of The Right-Hand Man.
The Right-Hand Man is the surprisingly gender-neutral trope of a character's very reliable and usually
extremely cool second in command.
It has hefty overlap with certain subsets of the Lancer trope, but it's a very specialized
archetype that loops in a lot of other wildcards as well.
The Right-Hand Man is defined by two key characteristics: HAVING A BOSS and BEING A BADASS.
The HAVING A BOSS part follows pretty closely from the definition - a right-hand man is
defined by who they're the right-hand man for.
These characters exist in unbalanced partnerships with their BOSS character and serve some very
important role for them - often as a bodyguard, second-in command or primary muscle.
This helps justify the SECOND key trait, BEING A BADASS.
Because these characters have a boss they follow, they are not in narrative control
over their own arcs.
To counterbalance this, they are usually way more badass than their boss.
Not necessarily stronger on paper, but more of a powerhouse - more consistent in their
ass-kicking.
Right-hand men are often the Big Guy in Big-Guy-Smart-Guy duos, handling the physical combat while their
boss handles the planning, but even when their boss is no slouch in the badass department,
the Right-Hand Man is usually highly specialized in ass-kicking, so while their boss might
have other priorities taking up their attention, the right-hand man can spend all their time
and energy on kicking ass.
As the Right-Hand Man is fundamentally defined by their dynamic with their boss, our ability
to discuss them in isolation is pretty limited.
And as this character dynamic tends to be pretty stable, it's at its most interesting
when something shakes it up.
So let's discuss some common archetypical pairings, and then we can talk about all the
fascinating ways they get weird.
As mentioned, sometimes the boss is The Smart Guy, so the right-hand man works as their
Big Guy.
The boss does the planning and directs the big guy, while the big guy does what they're
told and keeps their boss safe.
This pairing is nice and simple and can be easily subsumed into five-man bands, but they
can also stay solo and do their own thing.
This pairing is actually incredibly common overall, because it kinda follows naturally
from the base definition - if, as established, the right-hand man is a bigger asskicker than
their boss, the boss needs something to balance that out on their end too, and being a master
planner type is a pretty simple way to do that.
In these cases, the boss is the brains while the right-hand man is the brawn.
It's also common for the right-hand man to be the Fighter in a FIGHTER/MAGE DUO - so
while they're a heavy-hitting physical badass, their boss has some kind of fancy special
ability that might be more finicky to use but packs a serious punch when it works.
This, again, leans on the Right-Hand-Man's similarity to The Powerhouse trope, in that
it's their job to be consistent and reliable in their badassery, while other characters
may be able to hit harder but don't do it as regularly.
This has overlap with the next pairing, BADASS AND BODYGUARD.
Sometimes the boss is just an overall ass-kicking badass, but they still need someone watching
their back, and that's where the BODYGUARD comes in.
Pretty common when the badass is royalty.
This is the subtype that has the best odds of winding up romantic, too, probably because
the boss is a badass who can take care of themselves, which means the bodyguard could
use an additional reason to be so hell-bent on protecting them.
Sometimes the bodyguard is honor-bound or really invested in the boss's goals, but sometimes
it's because they really like them and want to keep them safe.
Always very cool when that happens.
Outside of that, these pairings often involve an actual master/servant relationship, like
if the bodyguard is a battle butler or has sworn fealty to the family or something.
Sometimes this pairing is even more tangible and is defined by an actual chain of command,
which is when you get CAPTAIN AND LIEUTENANT pairings, where the right-hand man is actually
defined as the boss's second in command in a larger power structure.
This is the dynamic where the right-hand man has the least obligation to be badass, since
their primary narrative role isn't bodyguarding their boss so much as it is running the rest
of the chain of command and taking charge when the boss isn't around.
They can still be badass, especially if this archetype is combined with one of the more
ass-kicking ones, but in these cases the lieutenant's badassery might be more social or tactical
- like if they're REALLY good at handling the crew when the captain's away and it's
clearly only a matter of time before they get a command of their own.
And finally, sometimes these characters are bad guys, which is where you get VILLAIN/DRAGON
DUOS.
I don't know why the evil right-hand man is called The Dragon, it's a TVTropes thing,
I just think it kicks ass so I'm not changing it.
Anyway, in these dynamics the boss is the Big Bad and the right-hand man is their Evil
Lancer, their villainous foil and probably their primary enforcer for their evil will.
This is not to be confused with The Starscream, who is also technically the boss's right-hand
man, but isn't really good at their job and is more focused on trying to get their evil
promotion, so.
The Starscream is much less reliable than a standard Dragon type.
The Dragon is often the more active of the two, as the Big Bad is the overarching threat
of the narrative, which means the writer can't really overuse them without diminishing their
scariness.
The Villain is likely to be off in their evil lair scheming and plotting while the Dragon
is the one going out and actually fighting the protagonists, which can result in The
Dragon getting more time to actually shine than the big bad, and correspondingly being
better-liked by the audience.
As the villain's right-hand man, The Dragon is very likely to be the boss of all their
evil minions, and this usually means they're also much tougher than them - any fight where
The Dragon features is liable to be a rather desperate affair for the protagonists.
Sometimes to kick things up a notch The Dragon develops a personal rivalry or nemesis dynamic
with one of the protagonists, so while the gang is understandably opposing the big bad
on idealogical grounds, the fights with The Dragon take on a personal edge for elevated
drama.
Now there are a lot of kinds of villains so this specific dynamic covers a lot of ground,
but it's got one unique characteristic we haven't touched on yet - which is that sometimes
these pairings get very dysfunctional.
Now obviously you can have fraught interpersonal dynamics between ANY of these pairings, especially
the romantic ones, but villains tend to be allowed to do worse stuff than anyone in the
protagonist-y zone, and that means Villain/Dragon Duos can be mutually unhealthy in whole new
ways.
And on that note, we should probably talk about how these dynamics work in the actual
story.
So far we've basically just covered how they get established in the status quo, but as
mentioned, this is a very stable trope that doesn't tend to change on its own, so it really
gets interesting when it's disrupted by some change in the plot or status quo.
To start off with the one everyone's probably expecting, sometimes a right-hand man develops
a BODYGUARD CRUSH.
It's probably a natural consequence of spending so much time and energy protecting someone
- you either fall in love with them or you eventually kill 'em yourself.
In these stories, the right-hand man is quite obviously very invested in the safety of their
boss beyond the parameters of it being their actual job, a trait that tends to flair up
when that boss is in trouble.
This is understandable and to be expected, so it's usually not too much of a surprise
if the boss's loyal bodyguard is maybe a little bit personally invested in their work.
The exciting part is if the reverse happens, and the bodyguard getting in trouble freaks
out the boss.
See, we kind of expect the bodyguard to like their boss, or at least to be worried when
they're in trouble, because it's the job of the bodyguard to keep their boss safe.
But this relationship isn't symmetrical.
The boss is not required to worry about their bodyguard - so if they do anyway, this reinforces
in the audience that the boss cares about their bodyguard, possibly as much as the bodyguard
cares about them.
Sometimes this is emphasized by way of a BODYGUARD SACRIFICE, wherein the right-hand man takes
a bullet for their boss and gets themselves put out of commission.
This is technically their job, and again is thus not particularly surprising, but it does
provide an opportunity for the boss character to highlight that while their relationship
might not be symmetrical, the amount they care about each other is symmetrical, and
they are quite worried about their bodyguard's well-being.
This both reinforces their status as a good boss and bodes well for potential romantic
subplots down the line.
It also ends up potentially hilarious if the boss puts themself in danger to save their
bodyguard and then gets chewed out by said bodyguard for doing exactly the opposite of
their job.
It's just… really hard to go wrong with this one, honestly.
Even in non-romantic dynamics, a boss character can win a lot of points by just clearly caring
about their right-hand man, appreciating their accomplishments and worrying about them when
they're in trouble.
Some might even put forward the thesis that a boss is nothing if they don't take care
of the people who work for them, and thus it is literally their job to care.
This trope is all over the place in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, most prominently in
the dynamic between Colonel Roy Mustang and his lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, who will not
stop trying to sacrifice themselves to save each other - but it's also present between
prince Ling Yao and his bodyguard Lan Fan.
In both cases these dynamics double as romantic subplots, and on top of that, the boss character
caring about their subordinates and bodyguards is emphasized to be the way that leadership
should work, in contrast to the bad guys running the country who sacrifice their underlings
constantly without a second thought.
But those are the ways this dynamic can go nice.
There's all kinds of ways it can get spicy instead, starting with the BODYGUARD BETRAYAL.
The right-hand-man's loyalty to their boss is absolutely their most important trait,
because that loyalty is what connects them to their boss and defines them as a right-hand
man.
And sometimes…
they just don't have it.
Or they used to have it, but they lost it somewhere along the line.
When the boss is fully one of the good guys, this usually means the former right-hand man
is about to become a major villain, since they're very qualified to be a major threat
- demonstrably badass enough to have served as a right-hand man, well acquainted enough
with their boss to know their exploitable weaknesses, and clearly very willing to turn
all their skills against them.
This can really sting, as it undercuts a hitherto fundamental component of their characterization.
Some characters can betray the good guys and it's not a big deal, if their loyalty was
always fuzzy or they used to be a bad guy anyway - but when a character wholly defined
by their loyalty breaks it, it's a betrayal not only of the characters but of the audience's
expectations.
As a result, when these characters turn traitor they can come across as a lot nastier than
a character who's been a villain the whole time.
This happens near the ending of Hellsing Ultimate where formerly unflappable battle butler and
ex-vampire-hunter Walter betrays the Hellsing organization for unclear reasons, apparently
just because he wants to be the one to kill hilariously OP protagonist and definitely-not-just-Dracula-in-a-silly-hat
Alucard.
This is a show where pretty much every single main character is either a right-hand man
or a boss, so loyalty and leadership is a kind of important theme - and the fact that
the betrayal is ultimately pointless makes it sting more.
That said, sometimes the right-hand man has a pretty solid reason to betray their boss,
which is most common when their boss is a villain.
A common motivation for this turn is the UNDERVALUED UNDERLING trope, wherein the right-hand man
realizes that, while their boss matters a lot to them, their boss clearly thinks of
them as disposable.
This taps into the fundamental imbalance of this relationship: if the boss only values
them for their skill and what they can do for them, then they really are disposable,
especially once the boss has achieved whatever typically villainous goal they were aiming
for.
The right-hand-man's loyalty to their boss can be shaken if they realize their boss has
no loyalty to them, even though that's not technically part of the transaction in their
relationship.
The boss doesn't have to care about their right-hand man for the structure to hold,
which is why it's such a nice surprise when they actually do - but the right-hand man
needs to be loyal, so they need to either care about the boss or the boss's goals.
If they care about the goals, being undervalued probably won't bother them much, but if they
care about the boss and want the boss to care about them - well, this can really shake 'em.
At minimum this can erode their loyalty, and in extreme cases it might even prompt a full-blown
betrayal.
This specific trope is one of the dominos that leads into Azula's spectacular third-act
breakdown, as Ozai fully leaves her out of his big final plan because while she is loyal
to her family and desperate for his approval, Ozai sees this as his victory and doesn't
want to share it with anyone - not even the person who technically did all of the work.
It's not enough to make Azula turn against him, but it's definitely enough to throw her
off her game.
Now because it's most common for bad bosses to be villains, this set of tropes most commonly
applies to Villain-Dragon Duos.
Once the Dragon and the Villain aren't fully on the same page anymore, generally one of
three things can happen: the villain can backstab the dragon, the dragon can backstab the villain
and become the main villain, or the dragon can backstab the villain and kick off a frequently
very brief redemption arc.
The villain backstabbing the dragon can actually be pretty tragic, moreso if the Dragon was
notably loyal and perhaps honorable or noble - or at least thoroughly dedicated to the
Villain and their cause.
While the Big Bad's motivation is usually pretty clear-cut evil, the Dragon can have
more sympathetic motivations, which can make watching them get iced by their boss more
tragic.
For extra knife-twisting, sometimes in this version the villain Devours The Dragon, powering
themselves up in some way by taking out The Dragon, implying that they really only valued
them for how they could serve them, and the villain sees consuming The Dragon's power
as their final act of loyalty.
Sometimes The Dragon actually sees it the same way and is evidently fine with it, which
is… somethin', but a lot of Dragons are pretty peeved about this and if they manage
to survive the process might fully split from Team Bad Guy over it, or get in a last-minute
backstab right back to make the villain pay for betraying them.
But in other cases, the Dragon gets the drop on the villain and hits the betrayal button
first, backstabbing them either for moral reasons or to take their place as the main
villain.
This is how you get the Dragon Ascendant, when the villain's right-hand man takes them
out and supplants them as the primary threat.
On paper, this is not the most surprising outcome.
As established, Right-Hand Men are usually very badass and tend to do most of the physical
combat while their boss sits around scheming.
In these dynamics it's expected that the boss is providing the right-hand man a benefit
in return - tactical know-how, smart guy plans, evil sorcery, money, whatever.
But sometimes the big bad is kind of all talk, and the Dragon is the much bigger threat overall
- the main threat the boss poses is that they have the Dragon working for them.
If the Dragon is given a reason to think their boss is a hinderance to their plans rather
than an ally, or if they conclude they're just make a better big bad than them, they
might test that theory and knock the main villain out of the way so they can run things
instead.
This tends to confirm their theory that the Boss was actually unnecessary for the chain
of command and the only real power they had was their right-hand man.
But sometimes the Dragon is proven wrong, and taking out the big bad goes very poorly
for them as their boss reveals hitherto unknown strength or just plenty of contingency plans
for dealing with them.
And of course sometimes the Dragon is aiming for a DRAGON REDEMPTION instead, taking out
their boss because they had a genuine moral crisis and concluded it was the right thing
to do.
This is unusual, but not unheard of - as the more active bad guy, The Dragon spends more
time actually dealing with the good guys, which gives them a chance to pick up on some
of their morals or potentially be talked down by a particularly persuasive good guy.
Some Dragons aren't actively malicious, they're just really loyal to their boss - and even
the ones that are actively malicious can still have priorities they can be persuaded with.
Point is it's not too hard to think of a reason for the villain's right-hand man to conclude
that maybe they're the bad guys and that that's a bad thing.
Even if this doesn't prompt an immediate backstab and pivot to the side of good, it induces
tension between the boss and the right-hand man, which is always good for drama - since
these characters are fundamentally linked, any complication to their relationship is
gonna be interesting.
You may have noticed that villainous right-hand man relationships seem to be a lot juicier
than heroic ones.
Setting aside the obvious factor that villain can do worse stuff than heroes and correspondingly
can have significantly more toxic relationships, I think a lot of this is the result of the
novelty of a villain with an arguable straight-up loved one.
Obviously plenty of Villain-Dragon relationships are strictly professional, but plenty of them
aren't.
The Right-Hand Man needs a reason to be loyal, and love - or at least dependence - is one
of those reasons.
But villains are a lot less likely to have loved ones in general - and when they do,
it's usually used as a sign that they're not as bad as they appear.
A villain with a beloved family member or a best friend they clearly deeply care about
or a child they choose to protect is humanized more than a lone villain cackling from the
mountaintops trying to burn the world down.
Heck, giving a villain a kid to take care of is one of the traditional fast-tracks to
redemption arcs.
Pure evil villains generally demonstrate no care or compassion for anyone else, and when
a villain does care it's usually used to purposefully undercut their villainy.
So a Villain-Dragon dynamic can be rare because it relies on a degree of interpersonal connection
that full-blown villains are generally denied, but because it's BETWEEN two villains it doesn't
actually undercut their villainy.
As mentioned, Right-Hand Men need loyalty to their bosses, but the boss doesn't need
to be loyal to them - it's a fundamental asymmetry in the dynamic.
So you can have Villain-Dragon Dynamics where the Dragon cares very deeply about the villain,
and either the villain cares about them - or the villain doesn't.
In the first case you have a full-blown villain dynamic where the villains care about each
other, which serves to deepen their characters and help them transcend the stereotypes of
villainy - plus if one of them gets hurt or killed, the other can wind up with the surprisingly
heroic motivator of "dead loved one", which can up the spice factor even more.
In the second case, you have a straight-up tragedy.
If the Dragon sees the Villain as a parental figure, a trusted friend or even their one
true love, but the Villain sees their relationship as strictly transactional, even potentially
sacrificing them for power, the Dragon becomes an immediately tragic figure no matter how
terrifying or villainous they've been in the past.
The fact is, heroic Right-Hand Man relationships have a lot of potential, but it's not uncommon
for heroes to like each other or be really, really loyal to one another.
This trope is a novelty when it's between villains because villainous loyalty is rare,
and it adds a lot of depth to an otherwise purposefully flat character archetype.
Plus, even in the less dysfunctional partnerships, a villain is often a lot more fun to watch
when they have someone to bounce off of, and a snarky second-in-command is great for that.
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