History Main / BaittheDog

* In the first episode of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Prince Clovis is introduced giving a powerful speech condemning an act of terrorism by the Japanese [[LaResistance resistance]] which seems pretty conciliatory, as he underscores how loyal Japanese are equal citizens of Britannia. Then a moment later, he is shown going back to socialize at a party, demonstrating that all of that pathos was a put-on. By the end of the episode, he shows what's BeneathTheMask, a neurotic nutjob, by despairing due to C.C's escape to the point of ordering a murderous pogrom on the Japanese ghetto to cover it up. Unlike many of these examples though, Karma catches up with him quickly so [[SacrificialLamb he doesn't make it very long in the series]].

* ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' does this in the new season with the team of Japanese agents. While immediately established as antagonist's to Hei, this isn't really a strike against them for sympathy points, given the GreyAndGrayMorality of the series. Mina is a badass fighter and provides [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbianism]] and Genma is highly [[AffablyEvil affable and funny]] and seems to be a LovableSexManiac. Then, in the third episode, you have them ambushing a squad of Russian soldiers. Genma hijacks a train and as he uses it to kill, you see the mangled body of the conductor next to him. Then, after Mina shows up and slaughters several more soldiers, Gemna creates a gas explosion to kill the remainder and during this whole time, finds this carnage absolutely hilarious. This is shockingly violent, even for Contractors and conveys [[LackOfEmpathy total lack of empathy for human life]]. Finally, while Genma initially ''seems'' to be a LovableSexManiac, he's really more like a ''[[PaedoHunt pedophile]]''.

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', while we see fairly early on that the Amestrian military is a fairly ruthless and potentially dodgy organization, its leader, Führer President King Bradley, presents himself (despite his [[PuttingOnTheReich title]] and kickass fighting skills) as a more-or-less benign individual who does what he thinks is best for his country and his beloved family. He even offers to help our heroes fight the conspiracy inside the military. Then it's revealed that he's [[spoiler:a homunculus and part of the aforementioned conspiracy, not to mention the one who ordered the Ishval civil war and subsequent genocide campaign]]. Despite this, [[spoiler:he's among the most human (not necessarily sympathetic) of the homunculi and it seems that his love for his wife, in the manga at any rate, is genuine.]]

* ''Manga/MedakaBox'':
** Naze Youka, once outted as Kurokami Kujira, appears to have a heartwarming moment when her older brother finds her in the headquarters of the Flask Plan and makes a heartfelt speech about how important she is to him. She tears up and runs into his arms... and at the same time uses a syringe to administer a [[DePower Normalizing liquid]] and reveals that she had erased her own memories of her family years ago.
* Nena Trinity from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. She was introduced as cute, quirky (she kissed the protagonist upon first meeting him) and seemed like a GenkiGirl [[WarIsHell caught in a bad situation]] ([[spoiler: which is confirmed in the side-stories that explains the Trinities' DarkAndTroubledPast]]) but [[StepfordSmiler trying to smile]] [[PowerTrio to her two older brothers and herself]] (and further supported that [[PigeonholedVoiceActor she has the voice of]] Creator/RieKugimiya, a popular voice actress known for heroic {{Tsundere}} young girl roles, which also makes people think she's going to be great). Then, in the very next episode when flying over a civilian wedding, says, "How dare you have fun while I'm working! You should just die." and then promptly [[DeathFromAbove shoots it]]. ''Twice''. All the attendants but a young girl are killed, and even that poor kid loses one of her hands and her mind. And then, when asked by her teammates (and brothers) why she did it, laughs and says, "Oops! I guess I pushed the wrong button!". She's a CuteAndPsycho TykeBomb if the watchers don't get what this scene totally says.
** Technically, the episode ''before'' the wedding incident [[EstablishingCharacterMoment already established her as a psychopath.]] The next episode just [[MoralEventHorizon hammered it home.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wish|2023}}''
** King Magnifico has the people of Rosas give their deepest wishes to him - erasing it from their memories in the process - with the false hope that he ''might'' consider granting it to them at some point. No one has any idea whose wish he will grant or when, and most will spend years if not ''decades'' waiting for it to happen, if at all.
*** During the wishing ceremony after his argument with Asha, Magnifico builds up the hype by announcing that he'll finally be granting a wish to someone who's waited forever for it, clearly alluding to Sabino, Asha's hundred-year-old grandfather. Just when Sabino has gotten his hopes up, Magnifico instead calls on a random (and much younger) woman who simply wanted to be a dressmaker, completely crushing Asha's spirits and her family's.

** ''Film/TheLastJedi'':
*** Kylo Ren has another moment when [[spoiler: it's shown that even after murdering Han Solo, he still feels torn between the Dark Side and the Light. He passes up a chance to kill Leia, and when he murders his own master to save Rey's life and fights off the Praetorian Guard by her side, it seems like he's redeemed himself. Although he has sincere feelings for Rey, his next act is to deliver a completely sincere but sociopathic WeCanRuleTogether speech to her. When she declines, he takes over the First Order and demands they destroy the last survivors of the Resistance, including her.]]

** Batiatus initially looks like an IneffectualSympatheticVillain or a JerkassWoobie. Then he crosses the MoralEventHorizon. With a smile. By [[spoiler:murdering the entire household of a guy who he owed money to, including a little boy, and then having Spartacus's wife Sura murdered to ensure that he only has glory to live for]].

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Actually an InvokedTrope when the writers thought that the recurring villain [[spoiler: Dukat]] was getting too popular with the audience as a perceived NobleDemon. Despite his charming demeanor and the fact that he truly cared for his illegitimate daughter, he was a hypocritical, crazed, sexually voracious dictator who [[AMillionIsAStatistic had thousands of people butchered directly and sent millions more to die in labor camps]] and didn't hesitate to sell his own people to [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Dominion]] which directly led to [[spoiler: his home planet winding up thoroughly demolished (perhaps even worse than they had done to Bajor, certainly faster) by the end of the show]]. The episode "Waltz" exists for the sake of showing the audience that, charm or no charm, this man is a monster, whose biggest regret in life is that he didn't wipe out the entire population of Bajor when he might have had the chance.

* Caesar's Legion in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' initially seem like a subversion. Their atrocities and reputation as powerful but mindless savages trying to topple civilisation seem to be their one defining attribute -- until you meet Caesar himself and find out that he's a well-spoken philosopher who wants to create a civilisation that won't implode on itself. But just annoy him a little and it turns out the Legion are every bit as self-interested and nightmarish as their reputation suggested, endorsing everything from cannibalism, human sacrifice to rape. And just to kill any doubt that Caesar only sees this as a harsh necessity, he orders the peaceful town of New Canaan to be wiped out purely to torment his former Legate.

* Speaking of monsters, ''Manga/BladeOfTheImmortal'' has Shira pulling a ''literal'' dog bait as his EstablishingCharacterMoment: Rin is feeling uncertain about whether she's strong enough to go through with her {{revenge}} quest, so Shira treats her to some wild boar and tells her that he became a strong swordsman by killing humans, that their deaths became the strength that allowed him to survive, and that the wild boar they're eating is no different: Its death is now allowing him and Rin to grow strong and survive. And then, just as Rin eases into the fact that she'll have to get over the fact that she's out on a quest to kill someone and has to become more like Shira, he reveals that the meat she just ate wasn't wild boar after all but ''her pet dog''... Why did he do it? Because he ''likes'' messing with people's heads; he does it routinely whenever he interacts with confused or uncertain characters and, considering the fact that it's ''far'' from [[SerialKiller the worst thing]] [[{{Sadist}} Shira]] [[SerialRapist likes doing]], it's kind of amazing how often he can fool even readers into thinking that he might have a decent bone in his body... The quite possibly only reason this works so well is because ''Blade of the Immortal'' runs on GreyAndGreyMorality, with even the worst villains having redeeming qualities, making Shira's pure evil very unexpected and out-of-place.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story arc ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'': In the very first full scene [[EnemyToAllLivingThings Doomsday]] appears, after luring a poor, unsuspecting bird to his hand, he crushes it to death instantly.

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': At the end of the infamous "[[Recap/BigCityGreensS2E5 Reckoning Ball]]", [[Characters/BigCityGreensChipWhistler Chip Whistler]] seems to give a legitimate apology to the Greens for what he has done in the past, and they believe him and sign his forgiveness contract, which is enough to prove his dad he's sorry and makes him the new CEO. But then he reveals in the CEO office [[TheMole his true nature]] -- [[TheChessmaster he only manipulated the Greens into thinking he's sorry]] so he can seize full control of the Wholesome Foods corporation so he can ruin their reputation, now that his dad is retired and completely out of his face. Not only were the Greens fooled by this "apology", but the audience as well -- at least Gramma still showed some suspicions when it was time to sign. But considering [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk he has been a jerk since the beginning]], this is ''not'' surprising.

* The ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E15TheLastMabelcorn The Last Mabelcorn]]" shows how [[Characters/GravityFallsTheAuthor The Author]] and [[Characters/GravityFallsBillCipher Bill Cipher]] met and eventually became enemies. [[spoiler:Ford summoned Bill out of desperation once his research reached a dead end, the dream demon praising Ford's genius and saying how he would change the world. Ford was so happy that someone appreciated his intelligence for once that he and Bill began collaborating on the Portal Device, but an accident involving Ford's partner [=McGucket=] revealed that Bill had just been using Ford to bring about the Apocalypse and thought it would be funny to watch Ford try and stop him.]]

* ''Fanfic/AllForLuz'': Shigaraki's one semi-redeeming quality in the story seems to be his relationship with Luz, his Quirk's successor. When his soul is put in her head after he died, he acts as a SpiritAdvisor in a EvilMentor sort a way, giving his centuries worth of advice on how to use her powers, hyping her up as TheChosenOne, reassuring her that she shouldn't feel guilty about killing her enemies when they tried to kill her first and letting her know she doesn't have to turn out like him if she doesn't want to. By doing this he's able to convince her he's not ''completely vile'', or at the very least assisting the girl in his own {{Supervillain}} way. [[spoiler:In reality, he in the end sees her as his ride back to his own world and hopes Luz continues her TraumaCongaLine until she believes he's the only she count on so he can pull a VillainOverride on her]].

* ''Film/{{Whiplash}}'': In Andrew's first practice session, his new music teacher, Terrence Fletcher, stops him a few times to firmly but gently correct his tempo, acting like any other friendly instructor and even assuring Andrew there's no worries. [[SadistTeacher Then Fletcher throws a chair at Andrew and starts hurling horrific insults at him]], and it's all downhill from there.

* ''ComicBook/AdventureComics'': The 2009 edition has an arc titled "Superboy: The Boy of Steel", which ends with Lex Luthor holding his niece Lori hostage and saying he will only cure his sister's paralysis once Superboy follows his instructions. Luthor follows through in curing his sister, but he immediately thereafter undoes the cure just to be an asshole. Superboy is so disgusted by Luthor's duplicity and willingness to be so cruel to his own family that he beats the crap out of Luthor and spells out that, while he is himself partially made of Luthor's DNA, he would never be as bad a person as Luthor is.

* ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'': [[Characters/WonderGirlCassieSandsmark Cassie Sandsmark]] often antagonized her teammate Rose Wilson/Ravager because of her past working with her father as a supervillain despite being brainwashed and drugged. Cassie would always say Rose does not belong on the team and doesn't trust her, and Rose would antagonize her for judging her for her past. There was a moment where the two of them appeared to make peace with each other when Rose was accused of betraying the team to work with her father. Cassie defended her, believing that after everything her father had done to her, Rose did not appreciate this gesture because of their previous interactions. Rose even considered leaving the team before the betrayer was revealed. But later, when Rose is battling her father's supervillain team, Cassie saves her. Rose is surprised, but Cassie smiles and says that they are family. Unlike before, Rose did appreciate what Cassie did for her. In a later issue, Rose remarked that she was happy that Cassie was treating her nicely. It was implied that the two young women were burying the hatchet and becoming friends. But then, when one of their teammates goes missing, and Robin tells Cassie this, and that he believes that Rose is concerned, Cassie tells Robin that she does not believe that, saying that Rose does not care about anyone but herself, calls her a one-eyed sociopath, stating that Rosa cannot be help nor does not want to be help, which means that her previous kindness towards Rose was likely fake. The two of them continue to antagonize the relationship throughout the series, with Rosa quitting the team twice because of Cassie, and Cassie ironically puts her back on the team, not because she believes in Rose, she let her back on the team because she needs a more able-bodied teammate. It appears that even when Cassie genuinely tries to be nice to Rose, her hatred of Rose is too strong for her kindness to last.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' story arc ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'': In the very first full scene Doomsday appears, after luring a poor, unsuspecting bird to his hand, he crushes it to death instantly.

Did the cunning writers set you up to sort of like the villain just so it would be even more jarring when you realized he was, well, ''evil''? That's this trope.

Compare/contrast the other TropeyTheWonderDog tropes, ''especially'' PetTheDog and KickTheDog. Contrast AdoptTheDog, those who look morally ambiguous/neutral until they do something good to set them as likable. If it's the series itself that seems relatively harmless until ''[[GutPunch it]]'' happens, there may be a DeadStarWalking indicating that AnyoneCanDie. Can induce MoodWhiplash. Also, compare and contrast with VillainyDiscretionShot; oftentimes the only line separating this trope from that one is that we see the [[KickTheDog dog kicking moment]] in gory detail. A Bait the Dog moment can subvert an EstablishingCharacterMoment, or it might show that the character is more complex than first appears. Often a BitchInSheepsClothing, ironically, or perhaps fittingly enough. Also, see EvilAllAlong, WiseOldFolkFacade and FauxAffablyEvil. Compare DevilInPlainSight, where the character is blatantly evil but nonetheless fools most of the other characters. If the character is a [[{{Villains}} villain]] or [[AntiHero anti-hero]] (or very much other bad guys), then it is sometimes a case of StatusQuoIsGod, in which the writers would make their [[PetTheDog good side]] disappear.

%%* ComicBook/TheJoker does this a lot. As one comic writer said, "The Joker's job is to make the audience laugh, then feel ashamed about it afterwards."
%%** This is DependingOnTheWriter. Other versions of the Joker have his sense of humor be too ghastly for any sane person to appreciate -- he [[EvilIsCool has flair]].

* ''Series/{{Oz}}'' treats each of the prisoners sympathetically, but often has them do something horrible once in a while to remind the audience that they're prisoners for a reason. Even Hill, Beecher, and Saïd, the prison's collective TokenGoodTeammate{{s}}, aren't immune.

* The main protagonists of ''Fanfic/CListers'' are all C-list villains who are all initially portrayed as a band of [[LaughablyEvil goofy]], [[AffablyEvil fun-loving]] LovableRogue{{s}} who occasionally boast about being super-villains. However, the Taped Interviews chapters show an outside perspective on them and reveals that, with the SympatheticPOV stripped away, they are all violent and amoral criminals who ''know'' they're in the wrong and simply don't care. It's especially horrifying in the case of Ratcatcher and Killer Moth, who were previously portrayed as IneffectualSympatheticVillain{{s}}; Ratcatcher is revealed to be a serial killer who primarily targets homeless children, and Killer Moth is shown to be a narcissistic scumbag who's manipulated his supposed OnlyFriend Firefly into serving as his attack dog by exploiting his mental illness and actively cutting him off from any kind of support.

** Joffrey Baratheon proves to be this. In "The Kingsroad", he seems to act decently enough in front of Sansa. Then he gets to bullying the butcher's son... it later happens again as he proves to be a [[RoyalBrat bratty]], spoiled, prince that gets humbled and learned his lesson. He seems to get better and make an effort to be the kind of prince that would make a good king. [[spoiler: Only to reveal his true colors after he becomes king. He has Ned Stark beheaded for treason, despite seemingly promising Sansa Stark, his fiancee and Ned's daughter, as well as his own mother, that he would spare him. He then goes on to mentally and physically torment Sansa and others at court. And once he gets his crossbow...]]

** After saving Arya from the Mountain's prison pen, spending a few weeks with her employed her as his cupbearer, mentioning how she reminds him of his own daughter at that age and generally making the audience smile at their semi-friendly interactions, Tywin leaves her with the Mountain again, with strict orders to stop him from ever getting drunk no less, regardless of his less-than-stellar record with children and females.

** Initially, it seems that Tywin has changed his mind, he wonders if he was wrong about Tyrion being a stunted fool. He then appoints Tyrion Acting Hand and this drives Tyrion to do a magnificent job, personally saving King's Landing and thus allowing the Lannisters to keep fighting the war, despite having ''all the odds against him'' and almost everyone else trying to sabotage him out of idiocy or spite (or both). When Tyrion asks for his reward (which is actually his ''birthright''), Tywin proves that he hasn't changed one bit, bringing up his whoremongering, dismissing his successes and stating that Tyrion is a worthless freak who killed his mother and will never be more than the family embarrassment.
** In the fourth and early fifth season, Stannis is more chummy than usual with Jon Snow, has a PetTheDog moment with Samwell Tarly, invokes Ned Stark's memory as a BigGood and is more overtly fatherly to Shireen. Then Stannis [[spoiler:sacrifices Shireen to R'hllor]], which, despite it being a SadisticChoice forced by desperation and madness, ultimately means that Stannis has chosen power over everything else.