Who wears the most sinister cape of all?
Villains love to wear a long, dark cape.
In the 19th century, the opera cape was a fashion accessory that upper class men wore At the Opera Tonight. It was grand, but not too flashy, and went great with a top hat, white tie and tails. But fashion changed, and the cape went out of style, destined to fade into the kind of outfit you would see only in Period Pieces.
But then Dracula was adapted into a hit stage play, and an even bigger hit film. Bela Lugosi used his old-fashioned cape, and turned it into something iconic, giving the garment a sense of grandeur and menace, especially as he flourished it whenever possible.
Since then, any similar cape has become an iconic accessory for major villains everywhere, from The Dragon to the Evil Overlord. Also a standard outfit of the Classical Movie Vampire. Even Dastardly Whiplash has been known to twirl one.
But all have to fit these three criteria:
- Long (at least knee length)
- Flowing
- Dark-colored (not necessarily black, but it wouldn't hurt)
A Sister Trope to High Collar of Doom (which is often paired with this trope, and was also codified by Lugosi's performance), Black Cloak.
Compare Cape Swish, Badass Cape, Spikes of Villainy, Superheroes Wear Capes (which can include villains), Pimped-Out Cape, Simple, yet Opulent. All-Encompassing Mantle is when this trope goes overboard.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Oda Nobunaga from Battle Girls: Time Paradox.
- Battle Royale: Kazuo Kiriyama's Coat Cape looks so much like this you'd think it was this to begin with.
- Zero's cape in Code Geass, even though he is supposed to be a good guy. The show is full of Black-and-Gray Morality though. And Zero sees himself as doing evil for the greater good.
- The Count from Gankutsuou.
- Van Augur wears one in One Piece.
- In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Oktavia Von Seckendorff wears one to complement Sayaka's Badass Cape.
- In Umineko: When They Cry, the Endless Magician, Battler Ushiromiya, wears one of these from Episode 6 onward.
- Mushiban, the main villain in the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 Gogo movie, wears a cape like this. It also has that high collar.
Comic Books
- Batman, who uses his cape in a very Dracula-like fashion. Bob Kane himself cited Lugosi's Dracula as one of Batman's inspirations.
- Judge Dredd:
- Judge Fear, the largest and most imposing of the four Dark Judges, is also the only one who wears a huge black cape.
- Judge Death himself adopts a black cape after repairing his body in the hospital on Dominion.
- In the Supergirl story Demon Spawn, villain Nightflame wears a long, flowing, black cape which has a high collar.
Films — Animated
- Alligators from Fantasia during the Dances with the Hours segment, wears all of red cape.
- Aladdin (1992, Disney): Jafar wears a black opera cape, with red inside, like a Dracula-esque.
- Queen Narissa from Enchanted, She wears a black hem, and her high matching black and purple collar, similar to a vampire top collar.
- Captain Crocodile from Robin Hood, wears all red opera cape.
- Cat R. Waul from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, wears a red opera cape with a light coral red tux.
- Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians, She wears a cream her fur coat, with red underside, like a Dracula-esque in appearance.
- Emperor Zurg from Toy Story 2, wears the Opera cape, like Dracula in some appearance.
- Grand Duke of Owls from Rock-A-Doodle, wears a cape, with black and red, was very similar to a vampire in some appearance.
- Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective wears an outfit similar to Count Dracula's.
- Mr. Darling from Peter Pan wears a top hat, tuxedo, cane, and black-red cape, an outfit similar to Count Dracula's.
- Megamind: The Black Mambaaaaaaaaaa. Yes, there are that many A's in the name.
- Jenner wears one in The Secret of NIMH.
- Pinocchio (1940): Honest John wears a blue cape, with red inside, that was somewhat was Dracula-like appearance.
- Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (1959). Bonus points for the flame-like fringe.
- Mother Gothel from Tangled, She wears a black long cape.
- The Evil Queen of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wears a black cape, but with white trim, just for a touch of grandeur (as pictured above).
- Warren T. Rat from An American Tail wears a blue opera cape, to see the Mott Street Maulers gang.
- Willie the Whale from Make Mine Music, wears a black opera cape with red underside, with devil horns, with somewhat had Dracula-esque in appearance.
- Vanessa from The Little Mermaid, She wears a dark blue opera cape, with a underside. She has her shell.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Butchers, Jack the Ripper wears an opera cape and top hat (which he almost certainly didn't in Real Life). Later used for some Sexy Coat Flashing (It Makes Sense in Context).
- Subverted in Don Juan DeMarco. Nobody finds the title character's cape frightening; on him it looks more dashing than sinister.
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- Dracula (1931) is the Trope Codifier from the aforementioned adaptations.
- In The Hands of Orlac: Vasseur wears an opera cape to conceal his sinister metal hands and forearms.
- Parodied in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, when Khamen Ra pokes fun at Darth Vader. "And what's with the cape? Are we going to the opera? I don't think so."
- The Phantom of the Opera wears one.
- In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Dreyfus wears an opera cape while making his threat to destroy the world. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, as Herbert Lom had played the Phantom of the Opera.
- Dr. Frank N. Furter is introduced in one of these in both The Rocky Horror Picture Show and almost every stage adaptation. Throwing it off to reveal his risque outfit underneath is a key piece of the choreography for his entry song.
- Darth Vader of Star Wars.
Literature
- In the Mind Screwy Sherlock Holmes pastiche The Deerstalker by Paul Cornell, a group of fictional and historic characters who have ascended to popular mythology try to shift Holmes from Doyle's character to the one that exists in the public conciousness by giving him a deerstalker. It's mentioned that for Moriarty, the equivalent item was an opera cape.
- De rigeur for Discworld vampires, along with every other Classical Movie Vampire trope. According to Arthur Winkings, Count Notfaroutou, this is because you need something flappy to transform into wings when you turn into a bat.
- The Shadow wore one in his books to help him blend into the shadows.
- In The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson, Eszterhazy's attention is attracted to Milord Sir Smith, the English Wizard (George Marmaduke Pemberton Smith, master of the Odyllic Forces) because the latter wears a long black cloak lined with brown silk — not, as one would expect, red.
Live-Action TV
- Chousei Kantai Sazer X: Garade wears a wide black cape that covers his lower body, which he discards whenever he enters direct combat.
- Doctor Who:
- The Master wears one in "The Five Doctors", which is ironic because, for once, he isn't the villain of the story.
- He does it again in "The Sound of Drums", this time in a red-lined black cloak which doubles as a direct reference to the Third Doctor's fashion sense.
- Kamen Rider villain Dr. Shinigami wears a long black Dracula-esque cape over his white suit.
Music
- Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine wore a large, black cape while performing on various stages, to compliment her macabre tone of song.
- Adam Sandler was Opera Man from Saturday Night Live character wears his outfit cape similar to Count Dracula's. He was an operatic singer, and He sang the Italian words in his songs.
Theatre
- Cross Road: the devil Amduscias wears one throughout, black with a red lining, and gives it a dramatic toss quite frequently. After making a contract with him, the other main character Niccolo Paganini also begins to wear one, and to toss it like the grand demonic violinist he (denies that he) is. The coat that Amduscias wears under the cape is also long, dark, dramatic, and swishable.
- The Phantom of the Opera sports one of these in most of his scenes, and uses it to very spooky effect indeed, usually sweeping it around himself before vanishing, right until the very end.
- At 2023 Mark Twain Prize in Kennedy Center, where Idina Menzel, honoring to Adam Sandler, She's a Opera Man to Opera Woman, wears Sandler's SNL cape but somewhat we had a Dracula-esque in appearance. Idina Menzel but She's like an Italian operatic singer, and similar to Pavarotti handkerchief in her hand.
Video Games
- BlazBlue: Per his love of opera, Relius Clover wears one all the time.
- Gehrman in Bloodborne normally does not have cape, but when you finally get to fight him or submit your life, he wears a long cape to bid a farewell to you.
- Pretty much every villain in Dissidia Final Fantasy. Namely, Garland, Emperor, Cloud of Darkness (it being all she wears), Golbez (who has the option of stripping down to just the cape, too), Ex-Death and Gabranth. Note that, subtracting The Emperor and the Cloud, these guys also get the Evil Overlord Armor, to boot.
- Subverted by Siegfried in Soulcalibur, but played straight by Nightmare. Those familiar with the series' storyline will get why this is funny.
- Super Mario Bros.
- In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Princess Peach receives one along with the standard high collar as part of her Evil Costume Switch when the Shadow Queen possesses her body.
- The Hammerites in Thief have armor like this, making it much harder to knock them out with a blackjack.
- World of Warcraft: The Lich King, to EPIC effect...in the opening cutscene. Model limitations prevent this from being achieved in-game.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: Damien's fireproof black cape. Also Pandora's cape while she served as an antagonist.
- The members of the Society of the Free Mind in An Epic Comic wear these with the Society's symbol on the back.
- Drake from Gold Coin Comics is a villain with a dark cape to match.
- Homestuck: Subverted with Eridan Ampora. He has a purple, high-collared opera cape to compliment his high status and goes to great lengths to try and portray himself as a Magnificent Bastard, but ends up more of a clingy, self-conscious Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. He gets rid of the cape just before he destroys the Matriorb (the thing that was supposed to repopulate his dying race), kills Kanaya and Feferi, and blinds Sollux.
- The Order of the Stick: In keeping with his nature as a Darth Vader Expy, General Tarquin, Elan's father, wears one of these, along with other notable accessories.
- Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance, after suffering burn wounds, wears one of these as part of a The Phantom of the Opera theme he's got going on.
Web Original
- In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara was reviewing The Others #1, and thought it was silly that a wolfman (not a werewolf though) would wear one of these.
Western Animation
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers' Villain of the Week Sewernose de Bergerac wears an opera cape because he grew obsessed with the opera after being flushed into the sewers beneath a theatre.
- The Hacker from Cyberchase wears a purple cape with an orange underside.
- Gravity Falls: Dipper (or rather, "Bipper") wears one in "Sock Opera".
- In the Mickey Mouse short Lend a Paw, where Pluto's devil wears his black cape and red underside and top of vampire collar, very similar to a Count Dracula's.
- Doc Ock and Vulture wore those in an opera-themed episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man.
- In The Venture Brothers, an Ominous Opera Cape and a Mystical High Collar are the signature of Dr. Orpheus, who is largely an homage to Marvel's Doctor Strange. It took Hank and Dean some time to stop calling him "a Dracula". Dermott once joked that on Halloween he expected to see Dr. Orpheus in sweatpants.