"Always two, there are. No more. No less. A Master and an apprentice."
— Master Yoda, Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, about the Sith
Sometimes the Big Bad gets bored doing everything himself. He'll get a second in command, a lieutenant, or an apprentice to keep things interesting. This is the Rule of Two. There are two big bosses, and both have to be taken down.
It's usually understood that the two want to keep it that way. Never introduce a third, and quickly replace the other if they go down. Due to infighting or general For the Evulz culture, the Big Bad may decide to dispose of the Dragon himself and get a new one. Similarly The Dragon will overthrow the Big Bad if the opportunity presents itself, and bring on a new Dragon of his own. The tension of this dynamic is that they rely on each other, but both know it's a race to see who will stab whom in the back first.
The Hero is usually the prime candidate for the replacement. If The Hero is about to take the Dragon down, expect the Big Bad to try to turn him to The Dark Side. If the Dragon is about to take the hero down, expect him to offer an alliance to overthrow the Big Bad and take his place. Compare and contrast Big Bad Duumvirate, Deceptive Disciple and Bastard Understudy. Not related to Rule of Three.
Examples:
Works with their own page:
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Anime and Manga
- Gundam: Every dictator in the franchise usually has an Ace Pilot enforcer backing them up. Given Gundam's military themes, a series may also have a chain of these.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Regardless of whichever member of the Zabi Family is in the lead, they always had Char Aznable as their enforcer. Other Arc Villains like Ramba Ral (as well as Char himself) also came with their own top henchmen.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing has a version where nearly every prominent male villain has a female underling. Treize Khushrenada has Lady Une, Zechs Merquise has Lucrezia Noin and Duke Dermail has Dorothy Catalonia.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans has a very developed political setting, with most of the major players (including the protagonists) having their own ace under their wing. Orga has Mikazuki, Naze has Amida, Gaelio gains Ein as one after agreeing to help him, and Rustal has Julieta. Even McGillis, one of the most skilled mobile suit pilots in the show, gains Isurugi in the second season to cover his back.
- Hellsing: The three major players in the setting (Sir Integra, Enrico Maxwell and The Major) each have their own champion to do battle for them (Alucard, Alexander Anderson and the Captain respectively).
- In Naruto, there's Kabuto and Orochimaru. Before they were introduced, there were Zabuza and Haku.
- Madara and Obito started like this, but Madara died shortly thereafter, leaving all the work on Obito and when Madara revived, they became Big Bad Duumvirate.
- Kaguya and Black Zetsu. Although the dynamic isn't really there since Black Zetsu is the one calling the shots, as Kaguya has absolutely no personality at all.
Fan Works
- Thunderstorm and Shadow in the one TV movie they appear in easily fit this in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series.
- The Crown of Thorns in The Roboutian Heresy operates on this principle: the organisation is divided into individual lineages, consisting of one older, more experienced master and a younger apprentice. The master trains the apprentice in minor Chaos sorcery and sabotage as they work against the Imperium, before ultimately being replaced by the apprentice when the master dies (whether by the Imperium's hand or their apprentice's). Thanks to this they've endured across the millenia since the titular Heresy, despite being officially considered destroyed on several occasions.
Films — Live-Action
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The apprentice (Jen) is a more skilled combatant than the Master (Jade Fox), but the Master is more treacherous.
- Indiana Jones: Every Big Bad that Indy goes up against has one distinct henchmen who handles most of the dirty work, and who usually acts as a Recurring Boss that Indy must face at multiple points throughout the movie.
- Every Diabolical Mastermind in James Bond comes with their own muscle.
- Each gang in The Warriors has a "war chief" who acts as second-in-command to the gang's war lord, and who automatically becomes leader should something happen to the war lord. The beginning of the film actually has two separate examples of this, with Masai becoming leader of the Riffs after Cyrus is shot and leading them on a crusade of vengeance, and Swan becoming leader of the Warriors after Cleon is killed and having to lead them back home when the blame for Cyrus's death gets pinned on them.
Literature
- Old Kingdom: Unlike the thousands of Clayr, the bloodline of the Abhorsens sticks to just two at any given time, the current Abhorsen and the Abhorsen-in-waiting. When an Abhorsen is about to die, his or her last action will be to pass on the seven necromantic bells.
Live-Action TV
- Every major villain in Chouseishin Gransazer comes with at least one main henchman. Karin has Akira, Logia has Lucia, Brighton has Algol and Belzeus has Gorgion.
- Doctor Who: The Master lacks a consistent Dragon across all of his appearances, but in each story he appears in he'll usually have a new henchman or pawn.
- Game of Thrones: Given how many characters there are, it's only natural that all of the major players keep at least one enforcer on standby. Cersei has the Hound, Joffrey has whichever Kingsguard is closest by, Tyrion has Bronn, etc.
- In Heroes, the Company's rule is "one of them, one of us": "them" being a human with some mutant ability, and "us" being a Muggle whose first loyalty is, always and forever, to the Company.
- Almost every villain who takes the lead in Kamen Rider Revice has at least one henchman standing beside them. Aguilera has Olteca and later Julio after Olteca's betrayal, Olteca has Kanae Motomura and Hideo Akaishi goes through Olteca, Vail and Daiji.
- Seigi No Symbol Condorman: Each Monster Clan executive has at least one unique henchman who commands their mooks for them or serves as their muscle for holding off Condorman. The only ones who don't are trio of Smogton, Gomigon and Hedoronger, who don't really need one since they already work together.
- Just about every Big Bad in Super Sentai has a right-hand of some sort. Some have two or more though usually one of them will end up taking the lead.
- Himitsu Sentai Gorenger: The Black Cross Fuuml;hrer goes through four Dragons across the entire series. Whenever his current Dragon would fail too many times, he'd summon a new one to take his place.
- J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai: In the show's early episodes, the Monster of the Week, would take this form, a normal human crime boss as the brains partnered with a devil robot as the muscle. Late in the show, it is revealed that the leader of CRIME, Iron Claw, actually works for an alien overlord named Shine.
- The Co-Dragons in Hikari Sentai Maskman, Igam and Baraba, each have Ninja bodyguards Fumin and Oyobu as their own respective personal henchmen.
- GoGo Sentai Boukenger: This is played straight by every member of the Big Bad Ensemble except Ryuuwon. Gai has Rei. Gekkou of Illusions has Yaiba of Darkness, with Shizuka of the Wind getting bumped up after Yaiba deserts. After going solo, Yaiba gains his own right-hand in Masumi after corrupting him to The Dark Side. Gajah spends most of the series without any henchmen other than his Mooks, but towards the end he creates Desperado to be his main enforcer.
Video Games
- In Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, the Joker keeps Harley as his right hand girl. Even if she's not very good at it.
- Subverted in Daughter for Dessert. Cecilia has Saul as her legal muscle when she makes her debut, but he represents the protagonist for free at his criminal trial, and plays dirty to get him a not guilty verdict.
- Played with in Double Homework. When Dennis starts blackmailing Dr. Mosely/Zeta, she helps him by expelling the protagonist from summer school, arranging a class trip in which he can sleep with all the girls (he thinks), and tells Tamara that she has to come along so he can have his way with her too. However, Dr. Mosely/Zeta is just biding her time until her cleanup crew can neutralize Dennis’s threats to her secrecy.
- Prominent in Fate/stay night. Sure, you could just kill the Master and run away from the Servant (it's even repeatedly stated to be the best strategy), but nobody ever does. Most apparent with Kotomine/Gilgamesh and Kuzuki/Caster. Nobody in either pairing is really the boss. Gilgamesh will do what Kotomine says, if he feels like it. Caster would obey Kuzuki's orders, but Kuzuki is too passive to really bother most of the time. Also apparent in Kotomine's fight against True Assassin and Zouken Matou. He's stronger than Assassin, but can't kill him due to him being a Servant, so he has to take out Zouken first and then Assassin would be vulnerable. But Zouken is essentially unkillable by normal means plus Assassin is keeping him busy.
- Magical Battle Arena has Ruru Gerard and Nowel Diastasis as the two primary antagonists of the game. This is however dropped in the sequel which sees Ruru Put on a Bus.
- The two major villains of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga are Big Bad Cackletta and The Dragon Fawful. In Bowser's Inside Story, where Fawful is the Big Bad, he gets a Dragon of his own, Midbus.
- In Melody, Bethany and Steve team up to break up the dream team of the protagonist and title character.
- This is a recurring motif in Touhou Project.
- Big Bad and her one-and-only dragon: Remillia-Sakuya, Yuyuko-Youmu, Yukari-Ran, Kaguya-Eirin, Eiki-Komachi (not bad folks), Kanako-Sanae, and so on.
- Everyone have a counterpart (not necessarily yin-yang or dark side): Reimu vs Sanae, Chen vs Rin, Marisa vs Alice, Remillia vs Flandre, the list goes on and on...
- Characters fight in pair during Imperishable Night.
- Yukari Yakumo's ability is explicitly defined as the ability to manipulate border between two different things. As for what that means in practice, it apparently means whatever Yukari wants it to mean.
- For that matter, the yin-yang features heavily in Touhou Project; it's even one of Reimu's attack mode.
- Metal Gear: Similar to Star Wars above, there is only one Boss (Master), and one Snake (Apprentice). Big Boss was once Naked Snake, and his master was the #1 heroine of WWII, The Boss. Then she went rogue, he had to kill her and take the Boss title, which he wasn't happy about. But in a plot twist of epic proportions, Solid Snake was never the apprentice - that was Venom Snake, Big Boss' body double and second-in-command. Snake killed the body double without realizing, and then set the master on fire. Then through sheer coincidence, he became the master of Raiden, who succeeded him non-violently as the master when Snake passed away of Werner Syndrome.
- Monster Hunter (PC) has the gremlin enemies. They're the only enemy type that spawns two at a time, and both gremlins needs to be killed together for their spawner to become vulnerable. Kill only one and the still-invincible spawner will generate a new gremlin in around ten seconds to replace the one you killed.
- Rocket Knight Adventures: Regardless of whoever is the Big Bad, they'll always have Axel Gear (the series' sole recurring villain) as their right-hand man.
Webcomics
- In Evil Plan
. Dr. Kinesis hires Alice as his second in command because he loses his previous number two.
Western Animation
- This is a common theme in Kim Possible. Drakken and Shego, the Seniors, and even Gemini says that he was saving the "Alpha" title for someone special.
Real Life
- In Rome, this began with the rule of two consuls in the diarchy, was revived by Emperor Diocletian creating the ranks of senior emperors (the Augustus) and junior emperors (the Caesars), then squared by implementing the Tetrarchy, which ended after the Civil Wars of the Tetrachy and Constantine the Great ultimately becoming a single Augustus.