| abstract | - The villain has the hero at his mercy, and after some Evil Gloating gets down to explaining his Evil Plan (complete with slideshow!) to use their orbital Weather Control Machine to destroy every ice cream store in the city. "And then what?" asks the hero. When asked, most villains will mentally hit a brick wall. Whether it's because their plans never get past Stage One, their goals are small-minded, or they honestly never thought that far ahead about cosmic destruction, they won't be able to answer. In this position, the hero may be able to coax them into a Heel Realization and get them to stop their plan, or at least distract them long enough to buy their team mates time to disable the Weather Control Machine. An alternative has the hero make suggestions for what they should do, and how they can leverage the now ice-cream-less city to create a lucrative "Dippin' Dot's" franchise (all to buy time for his allies, of course). Occasionally, heroes will combine this with a low key discussion of how they are wasting their genius and could make oodles of money renting their Weather Control Machine (or what have you) to drought stricken areas or as insurance against natural disasters. In short, that an honest (if business mercenary) path would make them actually successful. And sometimes, it even works! Then again, if it's a Card-Carrying Villain being asked, they'll just shrug, say "I hadn't thought of that", cackle, and push the big red button anyway. Or the villain may have an insane goal because they are insane, in which case logic is useless. Sometimes, this can happen to the heroes themselves too. Also sometimes known as the Monday Morning Question. A Sub-Trope of Armor-Piercing Question. Compare Stating the Simple Solution, Was It Really Worth It?, Victory Is Boring, So What Do We Do Now?. Examples of And Then What? include:
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