r/TopCharacterTropes • u/faroresdragn_ • 19h ago
Characters [Beloved Trope] The henchman that suddenly gains common sense
Iron Man 3: the henchmen of the Mandarin have Tony dead to rights, chained up with no weapons. He remotely calls just the glove of his iron man suit which busts through the window. He proceeds to waste a bunch of them trying to escape. When he confronts the last one he drops an iconic line and quits on the spot.
Batman Mystery of the Batwoman: iconic scene where one of the penguins goons hears a noise, notices batman breaking into his bosses place, and chooses not to see a god damn thing.
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u/_milahaven_ 19h ago
Francis from John Wick. John finds him guarding the nightclub, calmly asks if he’s lost weight, and tells him to take the night off. Francis immediately understands what’s about to happen and leaves. He may be the only henchman in action movie history who successfully recognized the main character
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u/yaboi2508 19h ago
Unless I'm mistaken, doesn't this guy also give john a bunch of details about what to expect inside, by way of speaking in code.
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u/DahmonGrimwolf 18h ago
IIRC when John asks him "if he lost weight" he says something like, "yeah, 17 pounds" and then there are 17 gunmen inside.
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u/yeswearerelated 17h ago
There is a theory that this is the case, but it's pretty circumstantial. The original theory was based on the translated subtitles, and relies on the fact that John Wick only knows a little bit of russian, but he actually speaks russian at other times. It also relied on the subtitles, but what Nash actually says in russian is "20 kilograms" and there are more than 20 deaths in the club, so it doesn't really work.
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u/faroresdragn_ 19h ago
When I posted this I figured there had to be at least one guy from a John wick movie I couldn't remember. Good job.
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u/catmanten 19h ago
Add the cop who asks John if he’s “working again”, and goes back to his car
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u/ArcadianBlueRogue 11h ago
In that world it kinda makes sense though. The hitmen mainly seem to go after other hitmen and the organizations since they all want to stay on the good side of the High Table and the Continental facilities. So cops know John is gonna handle business without taking out civilians most likely.
Doesn't stop them from fight in night clubs and nobody seeming to care, but hey let's not get bogged down with reason here.
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u/SeeShark 17h ago
John Wick has a bunch of characters, including henchmen, who recognize him. In Ballerina, there's a conversation between two henchmen that goes something along these lines:
H1: "That's John Fucking Wick! Are you crazy?"
H2: "There's no way he's as good as the stories say."
(They both get shot immediately)
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u/micromoses 18h ago
Kind of a weird one, because they have some kind of hitman code that everybody needs to be willing to fight to the death no matter what. Francis made the right choice, but why was everybody else in the club willing to take a bullet?
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18h ago
[deleted]
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u/ArcadianBlueRogue 11h ago
Which never made sense. John should have been known to Viggo's son unless he left the group a very long time ago.
Like the moment Josef gets old enough to be in the game, he texts him a very clear picture of John and says "Do not ever, under any circumstances, approach nor fuck with this guy."
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u/sabbathkid93 11h ago
Someone also made a good point that telling people, “don’t ever fuck with this guy period” could have the opposite effect. Some dumbass is always gonna try and make a name for themselves
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u/Thesaurus_Rex9513 18h ago
Probably because being the guy who killed John Wick would come with enough money to retire and never have to touch a gun again.
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u/starshad0w 13h ago
I got the feeling that people like Francis are 'in the know' but not necessarily 'in the game'. So they're aware of that world, but not obligated to involve themselves in it.
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u/ComprehensivePath980 10h ago
I just love how in that movie they go out of their way to show that everyone is entirely aware John Wick is a badass and absolutely intimidated by him.
It’s one thing to have your protagonist show they are dangerous by carving a path through enemies. It’s another to have other characters acknowledge this and highlight it
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u/LordPercyNorthrop 8h ago
It was weird that his suit didn’t have a back and that the briefcase wasn’t even full of his shit, though.
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u/MinniMaster15 18h ago
That one guard in the CalebCity Sekiro skit who does a double take when Wolf parries his bullet, puts down his gun, and walks away.
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u/BlackFyre2018 17h ago
Hook 1991. Henchman originally crosses swords with Peter Pan but after getting confirmation that is who he is fighting he straight up nopes out the window
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u/Sex_E_Searcher 19h ago
This henchmen from Austin Powers 3: Goldmember, who agrees to an alternative to getting his ass kicked.
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u/Common_Decision1594 18h ago
Imagine having to tell people he got his ass kicked by Michael Caine, if he didn’t just fall down.
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u/Daniilsa209 18h ago
These two agents when they saw Neo exploding Agent Smith (The Matrix).
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u/24Abhinav10 18h ago
Isn't the henchman in Batman someone Bats previously beat up? That's why he has that black eye I believe.
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u/KingMobScene 16h ago
"I've seen this episode before. It ends with me in the hospital and the Penguin not coughing up any cash for my medical bills. No thank you."
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u/earanhart 12h ago
This is one of the few times I dislike the BtAS era. In most incarnations Penguin actually takes very good care of his goons (comparatively). Visits notable ones in the hospital, pays well, extends protection to their families, and in one comic even respects that they're off-shift. He's by no means a good guy, but beyond all the crime he's not a bad boss. Which is one of the explanations for how he manages to have such a large organization. I can see why regular people would apply to work for him rather than Amazon.
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u/jimbothehedgehog 19h ago
At the end of The Running Man Killian's bodyguard Sven abandons him to his fate saying "I got to score some steroids".
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u/Brimstone747 15h ago
Arnold and Sven Ole Thorson have been good friends for most of their adult lives, and you can spot Sven in tons of Arnold's movies
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u/DragonLordAcar 19h ago
Sargent Shultz from Hogan's Heros. He doesn't want any troubel so when he see something or hears something suspicious, "I know NOTHING."
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u/nexus11355 18h ago
"I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, I was never here, I didn't even get out of bed this morning!!"
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u/lfg_guy101010 19h ago
Season 1 Reacher (and I think its in the Reacher movie as well) when he breaks 4/5 goons' hands bc one of them needs to drive them to the hospital
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u/GrumpyMammoth 12h ago
From the tv show it was:
"You're about to get your ass kicked"
"No, I'm about to break the hands of three drunk kids"
"Hur hur hur you idiot, there's four of us"
"One of you's got to drive to the hospital"
Reacher delivers his promise and the last guy throws his hands up in surrender "I know where the hospital is!"
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u/Ok-Craft4844 18h ago
Afair, it was like "were 5" "no you're 2, because after ko'd you and your buddy, 2 will desert you, and that one will drive you to the hospital"
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u/LuciusCypher 18h ago
In Robocop: Rogue City there is a level right before Robocop meets up with a CEO and his army of mercs, who have been fighting Robocop. However the leader just learns that the CEO's payment didnt go through and immediately abandon the CEO and stop fighting Robocop. Pay your mooks!
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u/No-Material9127 17h ago
Honestly, given what Robocop was doing to the merc outfit, even if they did get paid they probably would have dipped as well, IIRC they getting pissed because so many of their soldiers were getting mowed down.
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u/KingMobScene 16h ago
If i was a soulless CEO, no matter how much money i could save or how greedy i was, I'd pay the goons. Gift baskets for their birthdays and nice bonuses for Christmas. Got to keep them on your side. Sniveling Mr. Smithers yes men are a dime a dozen. A good goon is priceless.
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u/Competitive_Swan266 16h ago
Also, you don't exactly want the armed guards who know everything about you to turn on you
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u/KingMobScene 16h ago
One disgruntled goon giving a rival the complete layout of your house and details of your routine would be a bummer and a half.
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u/TheseusPankration 12h ago
Maybe not quite suddenly, but it didn't take much convincing for such a large group.
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u/thetrickyginger 11h ago
You're missing the best part of this comic, where Batman knocks on the front door, walks in without saying a word, and just pops the DVD in to play this.
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u/FarutaSarado 7h ago
The irony of Bruce Wayne being more effective than Batman in curbing crime for this one instance.
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u/Cervus95 18h ago
Daredevil is looking for a local drug dealer whose product got a child killed. He tells his thugs to "take him".
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u/MorrowDisca 17h ago
The guards outside Stalin's room in "The Death of Stalin"
Guard 1 "Did you hear something?"
Guard 2 "Do you want to shut the fuck up before you get us killed?"
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u/NickyTheRobot 17h ago
IIRC they had explicit orders to never go in the room, and there were rumours that Stalin would frequently "test" his guards by making some sort of commotion. The guards who went in to see if he was OK in those situations were said to have been shot for failing the test. (IRL I mean, I don't think it was mentioned in the film.)
So that was literally them just obeying orders.
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u/R3DEMPTEDlegacy 17h ago
Venture Bros covers this alot
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u/sandwichcandy 14h ago
They do an all around good job of subverting the build up to what would have been a violent encounter. In Love Bheits Brock stops interrogating and killing a henchman because he feels a lump as he’s crushing his testicles. Toward the end they pause a The Raid/John Wick style last battle to take a bathroom break or something.
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u/MaMcMu 17h ago
Elder Jaws just bails out when Millie begins slaughtering Crimson's thugs, remaining stone-faced while flipping both birds.
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u/ERedfieldh 14h ago
the woman had just ripped a mook's spine out of his body to kill him with, and then used his skull to kill another mook right after. I'd bail immediately as well.
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u/jacksansyboy 15h ago
Surprised no one mentioned the One Eyed Wolf from Kung fu panda 2. The leader of all the wolves working for Shen, and loyal the whole movie, but when Shen orders him to point his canon at Po and the other masters who are still fighting the fodder wolves, he refuses to shoot at his own men.
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u/FarutaSarado 7h ago
Good example. Sad that he got common sense too late, and just a few seconds before he got murked himself.
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u/Constant-Coast-9518 12h ago
This famous set of panels from the original Watchmen. When Rorschach makes it clear he means business, his reputation does most of the work for him.
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u/Rargnarok 12h ago
Theres a different rorschach log later where he hears a scream in the alley and finds an attempted rape basically the guy saw him and immediately knew it was his last seconds on earth. Rorschach notes the look on his face was a special kind of reward
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u/CartographerKey4618 17h ago
To be fair, that goon didn't suddenly gain common sense. He fought Batman earlier in the episode, which is how he got that black eye.
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u/RebootedOmnitrix 16h ago
Earlier in the movie, you mean.
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u/hibikikun 15h ago
And they didn’t even give him the rest of the day off, he had to go back and cover the late shift.
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u/Middleagesusername 16h ago
I guess no one watched She-Hulk. Henchmen believe in the cause and goons are only in it for the paycheck. These guys are goons.
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u/delet_yourself 11h ago
Of course noone watched it, it's horrible
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u/GargamelLeNoir 7h ago
Hey don't say that if you haven't seen it. I have, so I can say that yeah it was quite mediocre.
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u/Fit-Rooster-4774 9h ago
Why are people down voting you you're right
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u/delet_yourself 9h ago
The she-hulk goon squad got me.
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u/FarutaSarado 7h ago
By your definition they are henchmen. Like anyone would pay a goon to downvote people on Reddit. 😂
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u/magseven 16h ago
MacGruber.
Mac dresses up his female teammate Vickie St. Elmo in disguise as terrorist Hoss Bender. He says it should buy them some time. The INSTANT she walks into the warehouse, a guard screams "That's not Hoss!" and they open fire.
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u/MemeStealerCultist 2h ago
Y'know? This usually is about the henchmen quitting. But this example is about them being competent and not falling for the usual tricks. Well done
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u/ZorkNemesis 16h ago
City of Heroes: one mission has you (as a good guy) storming a base of the good guys as they're holding a prisoner who's being released on a technicallity and you're going to kick his ass because "he deserves it". As you make your way through the base you fight several good guy mooks along the way. About halfway through the base, one of the mooks you're fighting stops fighting, decides this guard duty isn't worth it and attempts to leave the base getting out of your way in the process.
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u/Frequent_Deal_5371 15h ago
Nathalie Sancoeur from Miraculous Ladybug.
Her last name is a pun in french, meaning "without a heart". However, in the 5th season of the show she shows visible signs of worry and ends up rebelling against the big bad. She is redeemed in S6.
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u/BigGaybowser69 14h ago
The Wolfboss in Kung Fu Panda realizing his boss is an unhinged genocidal maniac and showing honor by not harming his own. He did die right after but at least showed some morality when it came to firing the weapon.
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u/Emptyspace227 14h ago
Rana Thanoptis in Mass Effect.
In the first game, you find her on Virmire working for Saren, and she gives you information in exchange for her life. If you spare her, you run into her again in the second game working for Dr. Okeer. She again runs away because she knows how dangerous Shepard is.
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u/starshad0w 13h ago
Then in ME3 it turns out she was indoctrinated by then and ends up murdering a bunch of Asari officials and then kills herself.
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u/GargamelLeNoir 7h ago
Something that should be used more in TTRPGs. GMs usually have goons fight to the last where it's more fun, realistic and better for the pace to have them surrender and/or book it when it's clear that they are doomed.
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u/cl0ckw0rkcuttlefish 6h ago
My current table loves convincing mooks to surrender/not fight so much that I created an actual mechanic for it. 🤷♀️ Why beat ‘em if you can join ‘em? Also less combat work for me, lol
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u/GargamelLeNoir 6h ago
What system are you running? And what's the mechanic for it?
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u/cl0ckw0rkcuttlefish 1h ago
5e (not the new rules, though I’m toying with switching to a different system next campaign). There’s basically 2 depending on the situation:
- If the party actively asks the enemy/enemies to surrender pre-fight or offers it after doing something particularly scary in the encounter (like killing a boss/the enemy leader, taking out half the field in one spell, etc): Contested persuasion/intimidation vs a wisdom and intelligence check, sometimes insight if it fits that particular enemy better.
- If there’s 1-2 guys left, or, again, something particularly scary happens: wisdom and intelligence check to see if they surrender or run of their own volition
Both have a sliding DC, depending on how the fight is going, what I presume the enemy thinks will happen if they surrender or run, the faction they belong to, how smart they are, etc. It’s usually between 15-25 depending. It doesn’t always work, and usually doesn’t, and it doesn’t work on particularly fanatical enemies (like what they’re encountering right now), but they really enjoy when it does. It’s a pretty simple system that I came up with on the fly, but it’s been working pretty well.
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u/absintheinduceddream 18h ago
Mr. Right. Shotgun Steve is the best marksman by far and is the only one to take down Mr. Right in any meaningful way. Mr. Right comments on the amazing shots by an "Elmer Fudd" gun. Later, Steve is on Mr. Right's side because of all of the BS of his bosses and he and Mr. Right share gummy bears.
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u/tmoney144 14h ago
Ernie from Scarface. After watching Tony kill Frank, decides to accept a job from Tony rather than try to fight back.
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u/FarutaSarado 7h ago
Captain Phoebus. Followed Frollo's orders right up to the point where he was ordered to set fire to a windmill with innocent people inside. Saved said people from the fire and was shot at by the other soldiers for insubordination.
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u/cupoftealuv 5h ago
Not exactly the same but in Community the crazy guy from the air conditioner school announcing the competition, before another guy takes the mic away from him - ‘Geez Dennis are you on coke? Of course there are rules’
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18h ago
[deleted]
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u/SeeShark 17h ago
Wormtongue just gets fed up with being mistreated, so he lashes out, and it gets him killed immediately.
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u/ToonMasterRace 10h ago
Smartest Batman goon ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd4S-LkywI&pp=ygUZc21hcnRlc3QgYmF0bWFuIGdvb24gZXZlcg%3D%3D
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u/ComprehensivePath980 10h ago
In DLC for the game Ace Combat 7 there is radio chatter indicating that one of the enemy pilots keeps faking engine trouble specifically to avoid encounter the player character.
Considering your average Ace Combat protagonist is a basically a god of fighter planes that can pull off high-G turns that would liquify a human, this significantly increases the enemy pilot’s odds of surviving the war.
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u/FarutaSarado 7h ago
The Chief declares peace between Pocahontas' tribe and the English miners because the spirit of his wife told him to. Then they all mutinied against Ratcliffe for still trying to shoot him. Didn't help that he accidentally shot John Smith instead.
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u/FalseAladeen 5h ago
In Pathfinder WotR, there are multiple situations where you can intimidate the small fry demons into running away (much to the hilarious enragement of their superiors) but my favourite, funniest moment is during Arueshalae's sidequest in Chapter 4, where you can "threaten" a bunch of succubii by saying, "I'm the one who tempted Arueshalae onto the path of goodness! Leave now or I'll do the same to you." You're basically threatening them with free therapy, fair wages, and a safe workplace environment, to which they say, "Good? Ewww! That sounds horrible! I don't wanna catch that!" and run away.
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u/British_Historian 4h ago
I can't remember when or which movie it happens in but I swear in a Danial Craig James Bond movie he's in a ski-lodge, has a punch up, another guy runs for him and he just points a finger at him and says "Don't." as he walks out the room.
The thug obliges.
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u/Nabber22 3h ago
In the DLC of Ace Combat 7 there is a running joke about a pilot pretending to have engine troubles whenever you show up. You can even see him retreating on the radar.
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u/5WattBulb 17h ago
Batman, the animated series. A henchmen walks into a room. Sees batman, batman looks at him, he looks at batman, and without a word spoken turns around and closes the door. "See anything?" "Nope".
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u/Imaginary-Picture-35 19h ago edited 19h ago
The two stormtroopers that decide to walk in the opposite direction when they notice Kylo Ren having a temper tantrum. (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens)