History Main / TheDogWasTheMastermind

->''"Franchise/ScoobyDoo--it's always that character who had one scene you forgot about."''

->''"[[TheStinger I made the page! I did it!]]"''\\
''"[[BeneathSuspicion Nahhh, it can't be]]'' you."

* In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence'', Leon Belmont's best friend, Mathias Cronqvist, who's only mentioned a handful of times throughout the game and is explicitly stated to be bedridden with grief after his wife's death, appears near the very end and reveals he orchestrated the entire plot and played everybody like a fiddle, all so he could become a vampire [[RageAgainstTheHeavens as revenge against God for allowing his wife to die after devoting his life to serving Him.]] Since this is a prequel set before all the other games, this means that not only is Mathias the BigBad of this game, he's also the Big Bad for the ''entire series''. That's right. '''Mathias is Dracula'''.

* In the 6th episode of ''WebVideo/{{Jreg}}'''s ''Centricide'', Jreg reveals the true leader of the anti-centrist movement is [=JReg=] Gaming, the NamesTheSame SitcomArchNemesis of the channel. However, it ends up being subverted when Jreg admits he only used [=JReg=] Gaming as a means of delaying Radical Centrist until Tankie can arrive.

** Played straight when Lucius Zogratis, the true villain of the entire series, is revealed to be the [[SharingABody split soul]] of Wizard King Julius Novachrono, the beloved, eccentric ruler of the Clover Kingdom and mentor to the heroes, who instigated multiple CrazyPrepared {{Batman Gambit}}s within a decade or more to gain the power from Lucifero's heart so he could start a worldwide holy war to annihilate humanity and resurrect them into immortals. The "dog" part comes from while Julius is well-known as the Wizard King, nobody but his Dark Triad siblings even know who he really is.

** Played straight when Lucius Zogratis, the true villain of the entire series, is revealed to be the [[SharingABody split soul]] of Wizard King Julius Novachrono, the beloved, eccentric ruler of the Clover Kingdom and mentor to the heroes.

* The killer in ''Series/TheWomanInTheHouseAcrossTheStreetFromTheGirlInTheWindow'' turns out the be the eight-year-old girl across the street and not her father, or the ex-con handyman, and she almost successfully frames Kristen Bell's character for the murder of her dad's girlfriend, the handyman, and her dad as well. And it ends up she committed all those murders plus the murder of her own mother and her teacher for extremely petty reasons.

* ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'': Blood Stalk keeps on appearing as TheDragon of the show's various ArcVillain[=s=], always inevitably betraying them before easily moving on to the next one because his assistance is invaluable to their plans. As times passes, it becomes more and more apparent that he is merely using everyone for his own ends, culminating in the reveal of his true nature as Devourer of the worlds, Evolt, who has been carefully pulling the strings from BeneathSuspicion for years in order to regain his full strength and destroy Earth.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "Payback" the eponymous villain turns out to be Dr. Stenton's neglected son Kenny. Who believed that his father would have time for him if he could get rid of the people troubling his patients, removing their need to see him.

* In ''LightNovel/ReZero'', Subaru attempts to find out who's been murdering him during the second arc. Later, he believes that it's Rem because of her initial distrust towards him, but when she too dies of mysterious circumstances, Subaru learns that death curses can only be placed when physical contact is made to the victim. It's at this moment where Subaru discovers the only person who could have cursed him was actually [[spoiler:the dog that bit him from a village he visited that's actually a demon]].

* In ''Manga/TomodachiGame'', it's revealed early on that there's a traitor within the friend group that forced them all into the SadisticGameShow. After constant betrayals and mind games, it's finally revealed that [[spoiler:ShrinkingViolet Kotorogi masterminded almost all of the despair and trauma, being a {{sadist}}ic BitchInSheepsClothing who was TheDragon to the true mastermind and arranged the deaths of Tenji and Shibe's fathers after stalking them for years]].

* Parodied and exaggerated in ''ComicBook/TheGoon'''s "The Deceit of a Cro-Magnon Dandy" arc. The Goon's crime empire is threatened by a [[SharpDressedMan Sharp-Dressed]] FrazettaMan gangster named Dapper, but Dapper himself has an elusive and mysterious [[TheManBehindTheMan patron]]. This turns out to be [[spoiler: the strange-looking kid who carries [[QuackingUp a duck around]] and had been a RecurringExtra since the beginning of the comic.

** In the story "Silver Blaze", the murderer was a horse. [[spoiler:But the guy who was killed [[AssholeVictim was trying to maim the horse]], so the horse was justified in killing the victim.]]

* ''Literature/TeenPowerInc'': In "Green for Danger", the mastermind behind the two criminals involved in an armed robbery is [[spoiler:a nice and quirky elderly flower lady, who turns out to be the mother of one of the criminals, and is also somehow related to the other one.]]
* In Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/StarSmashersOfTheGalaxyRangers'', the race of {{Big Bad}}s, who were mentioned throughout the book turn out to be tiny turtles with PsychicPowers kept as pets by another race.

* Late in ''VideoGame/Disgaea6DefianceOfDestiny'', the BigBad who created the God of Destruction Zed and co. have been struggling to defeat is revealed to be none other than [[spoiler: Cerebus, the pug that's been Zed's companion from the beginning of the game.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Temtem}}'', [[spoiler:the BigBad is revealed to be none other than TheProfessor Konstantinos, the very man who gave you your StarterMon. He's the one who created [[NebulousEvilOrganization the Belsoto Clan]] and groomed TheRival Max into joining as part of his EvilPlan to TakeOverTheWorld]].

* In ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'', they ''really'' like to play this around ''a lot''. Usually, a seemingly inconspicuous character that is highly enthusiastic about your arrival will appear at around the first 10 scenes of the game; you can bet 99% of the time that this person ''will'' be the BigBad or even the GreaterScopeVillain.
** The original ''VideoGame/{{Persona 1}}'' had this trope retroactively applied because, as it turns out, Kandori's Persona, Nyarlathotep, is actually a separate entity which manipulated events to go his way.
** Both halves of ''VideoGame/Persona2'' make use of this. ''Innocent Sin'' reveals that The Masked Circle, including Joker, were all pawns of a greater power, Nyarlathotep, who took on the form of an ideal father to Joker (real name Jun Kurosu) and modified Jun's memories to make him easier to manipulate. ''Eternal Punishment'' reveals partly through that JOKER (a contract killer meant to mimic Joker in the [[AlternateUniverse other reality]] that ''Eternal Punishment'' takes place in) is a character from the previous game Tasuya Sudou, who was King Leo of the Masked Circle in the ''Innocent Sin'' reality.
** ''VideoGame/Persona3'' uses this trope as well, with Shuji Ikutsuki, staff director for S.E.E.S. and PungeonMaster being responsible for the Dark Hour and the creation of the Arcana Shadows as an attempt to end the world.
** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' practically runs on this trope, in keeping with its theme of not letting first impressions or outward appearances deceive you. All three of the major players in the kidnappings and murders can be frequently found around Inaba doing absolutely ''nothing'' out of the ordinary, notably Tohru Adachi, who seems to be a harmless goofball assistant. However, the real kicker is that the ''true'' final boss, [[TheManBehindTheMan the one who set the events of the game into motion]], turns out to be...the nameless, forgettable gas station attendant who you met at the very beginning of the game, who turns out to be none other than the goddess Izanami in disguise. Made even better by the fact she didn't have a character portrait, which is a good indicator of a notable character, until AFTER the reveal.
** ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' reveals that the cause of both the Investigation Team and SEES being summoned to the alternate Yasogami High was caused by a powerful denizen of that realm: the Clockwork God, an aspect of Zen which he had sealed away to prevent the [[DeadAllAlong already dead]] Rei from being taken to the sea of souls.
** Happens again in ''VideoGame/Persona5'' when it turns out that the [[TheManBehindTheMan real villain]], Yaldabaoth, impersonated '''Igor''', who trapped the real Igor within the Velvet Room and then took his place in order to mislead the protagonist and basically everyone else in Japan.
*** In ''Royal'', at the start of October, Joker, Morgana, and Kasumi, arrive at the entrance of a mysterious Palace, and after helping Kasumi escape, Joker and Morgana decide to leave the area alone. Until suddenly in January the citizens of the city are placed into a LotusEaterMachine. Learning the Palace is involved, Joker investigates the building, discovering the ruler of the Palace is Dr. Maruki, Shujin Academy's guidance counselor.
*** Joker himself fits this role from Sae Niijima's perspective. She is certainly surprised that the leader of the thieves she's been hunting down for months was that kid standing in the background during her arguments with Sojiro Sakura.
** A rather unique case in ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'' also overlaps with the series' tradition of making seemingly out of place {{Cloudcuckoolander}} characters into mentally unstable traitors. As soon as you land into Sendai, the first person you meet is not the Jail Monarch but Kuon Ichinose, a rather eccentric woman working at a nearby university and seems to be more than enthusiastic to spell out that she was behind everything. Sure enough she's actually the ''mastermind proper'', not the right hand of the BigBad or even a godly entity, responsible for unleashing the in-game catastrophe with help from the Lead Konoe out of a petty issue with the first AI she created.
** ''VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth'' reveals that the entity responsible for Hikari being trapped in the cinema was an administrator of the Collective Unconscious whom had taken another form: Nagi, the friendly manager who was always by Hikari's side. It turns out that she was just merely feeding in her depression by showing her horrible movies made of pure negativity.
*** This also happens in an in-universe labyrinth which is a dinosaur movie about weak herbivore dinosaurs running away from mighty carnivores into a paradise. While the movie constantly tries to make the player think that the movie villains are the carnivores, it's the ''weak herbivores'' that are the [[GreaterScopeVillain Greater-Scope Villains]] whose cowardice and herd mentality directly resulted in the group discord that got them all wiped out by carnivores and one of their AllOfTheOtherReindeer teammates going berserk and transforming into a carnivore himself to mercilessly attack the party.

** [[TropeNamers The trope name comes from]] the episode "Beyond Blunderdome" where Homer produces a remake of ''Film/MrSmithGoesToWashington'' in which the villain is replaced by a dog, made obvious (to Homer) because "[[TraitorShot the dog has shifty eyes]]". The exchange is below, courtesy of SNPP:

'''Homer:''' They will if you set up that the dog is evil. All you do is have to show him doing this. [lowers eyelids and glances around in shifty-eyed fashion] [[TropeNamers The people will suspect the dog.]]

** ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'': Volo, the affable, laid back IntrepidMerchant who's been at your side since the beginning and always willing to lend you a hand, is revealed in the post-game as a deranged, psychotic GodhoodSeeker who's been the one behind the space-time distortions threatening the world and is so obsessed with the legend of Arceus that he's perfectly willing to put all of Hisui at risk just for a ''chance'' to meet it.

** ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'': Scabbers, Ron's pet rat, who had been around since the first book. He's actually Peter Pettigrew, the man who sold Harry's parents out to Voldemort and framed Sirius for murder, in Animagus form. The clues are rather obtuse--it's mentioned that Pettigrew was an Animagus of some variety (though there's a misleading implication that Animagi can't stay transformed for long periods of time), and [[EvilDetectingDog Hermione's cat always hated Scabbers]] (which seems meaningless before the reveal because cats naturally hunt rodents). The biggest clue is that Scabbers had been in Ron's family for over a decade, noted even in this magical universe to be a suspiciously long life for a rat; real ones top out at about 3 years. Even so, virtually no one saw this one coming.

* ''Anime/LittleWitchAcademia'': It's obvious to the audience (but not the characters) that Professor Ursula is Shiny Chariot, but you are far less likely to guess that she siphoned magic power/potential from Akko, Diana, and the rest of the audience during her magic shows. This is actually why Akko struggles to learn magic, something we'd always assumed was because she has no magic lineage and is TheDitz. Not long after we learn this, however, it becomes clear that the true BigBad was Croix, a more obvious canditate for secret evilness, and Ursula/Chariot was just an UnwittingPawn in one of her schemes.

* ''Franchise/DocSavage'': In ''Devil on the Moon'', the true identity of the Man on the Moon turns out to be this. It is Bob Thomas, a bystander seemingly killed by the Man on the Moon's mooks in the opening chapters.

** Played straight when Lucius Zogratis, the true villain of the entire series, is revealed to have been disguised as King Julius Novachrono, the beloved, eccentric ruler of the Clover Kingdom and mentor to the heroes (or at least, his SplitPersonality).

* In ''Film/NoWayOut'', the [[TheReveal ending reveals not only that Tom Farrell was a Soviet spy all along]] - though innocent of murdering his girlfriend - but his landlord was his Soviet handler.

* ''/Series/StrangerThings'': Henry Creel, the 12-year-old boy who had a few non-speaking appearances in his father Victor's flashback? He's One, the psychotic orderly responsibe for slaughtering Doctor Brenner's test subjects, as well as [[SelfMadeOrphan his own mother and sister.]] Adding onto that, One is revealed to be ''Vecna'', the monster in the Upside Down who's shown to be responsible for all the atrocities in the series, and its overall BigBad.