The Assistant to the Villain series is a metafictional genre parody that blends the magic and romance of fantasy with the low-stakes, character-driven humor of the workplace comedy. Unlike epic fantasies focused on large-scale wars, cozy fantasy emphasizes personal relationships and the humor of everyday life in a magical setting. Maehrer “pitched [the story] as Once Upon a Time meets The Office,” transplanting the familiar tropes of sitcoms into a high-fantasy world (Salfen, Paul. “A Villain’s Assistant Steals the Spotlight.” AMFM Magazine, 4 Sep. 2025). The narrative simultaneously participates in and parodies fantasy conventions by applying the logic of contemporary office culture to a dark lord’s lair, such as when Evie asks Trystan about the “office policy on romantic fraternization” (3). The novel creates a comedic parody that both celebrates and subverts the genre’s tropes for a modern audience. Another metafictional novel that pokes fun at fantasy conventions is J. Zachary Pike’s Orconomics: A Satire (2014), which follows a disgraced hero named Gorm Ingerson as he attempts to redeem himself and thwart the plots of business magnates. Beyond fantasy spoofs, parodies have an extensive literary tradition that spans centuries and genres. For example, Miguel de Cervantes subverted the chivalric romances popular in the 17th century by making the hero of Don Quixote (1605) an unremarkable, aging man who decides to act like the beloved knights of his storybooks and embarks on a series of comedic misadventures. As Adversary to the Villain demonstrates, parodies remain popular due to their ability to shed humorous new light on familiar tales and tropes.