History Main / TheDogWasTheMastermind

* In ''Series/TheXFiles'' novel ''Goblins'', the invisible killer turns out to be the dispatch of the local police, whose role in the story up to that point has been saying few words over the radio. She is recognized by her CatchPhrase.

* ''Fanfic/TheBoltChronicles'': A literal example in-universe in “The Murder Mystery.” It is revealed that Bolt and the other animals from the TV show teamed up to kill The Director, and furthermore [[InsuranceFraud collected a double-indemnity life insurance payout]] afterwards.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': In the main game, it's hinted that the City's founders who rebuilt and restarted the fight against Moebius contained a seventh member lost to history, with their only mention being that they refused to have a statue in their honour as the other six founders did. Come ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3FutureRedeemed'' and it seems that A, a mysterious individual that fights alongside the founders and is [[spoiler:an incarnation of Alvis from the first game]] is the mysterious seventh founder, but the reality is that it's none other than [[spoiler:''Riku'', the nopon blacksmith that journeyed not only with the founders but the maingame protagonists over 1000 years later despite his claims that he's nothing more than a [[BlatentLies "common variety nopon"]]. It's implied the reason is a mixture of wanting to keep a low profile so he can travel in secret and hide the fact that he's technically immortal, and because he's actual rather modest and isn't a fan of being in the spotlight or throwing any star power around.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' season 4 had an overarching plot about a mysterious ship that's been supposedly destroying non-Starfleet-affiliated ships. In the second to last episode of the season, "The Inner Fight", we find out the mastermind is Nick Lucarno. "Who?", you might ask? Oh, no one special, just [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E19TheFirstDuty a disgraced Starfleet Academy cadet from an infamous episode]] of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. He's only mentioned on a view screen with an old younger picture of himself and we don't see him until the end. Even more, we see Seven of Nine and Beverly Crusher's names on the list [[Series/StarTrekPicard and we known where they were at this time]], which left him and Thomas Riker, who was last seen as a member of the Maquis, as the last two people on the list and Riker would have had a more obvious reason.

* ''VideoGame/OctopathTravelerII'' does it too. Of the core members of the ApocalypseCult seeking to resurrect the GodOfDarkness, a few are revealed to be minor . As the game nears its conclusion, it's revealed that the spy keeping tabs on the heroes was Ori, the quirky journalist reporting on Partitio's exploits. Tanzy, the stage director of Giselle's wandering entertainer troupe, was using their travels to locate the Sacred Flames. And then, Arcanette, the leader of the cult and mastermind of the entire operation, is eventually revealed to be Mindt, the kindly cleric in Flamechurch who had maybe two minutes of screentime up to that point.

* Comedic example: The villains of the first arc of ''Literature/HumanityHasDeclined'' are the headless, skinless chickens that had appeared earlier but did not even show evidence of intelligence. This should tell you [[WidgetSeries everything you need to know about the series]].

* In a two-part story in Detective Comics (circa 1989), Franchise/{{Batman}} tries to stop the anti-establishment villain (or anti-hero depending on individual viewpoint) ComicBook/{{Anarky}}. Over the course of the two issues, the reader is shown scenes of a family man and his son, both together and apart. These scenes slowly imply that Anarky is the father, and he even tries to take responsibility when Batman catches him with Anarky's cape. Turns out he was just covering for his son, who was the real Anarky. The son was a middle schooler at the time.

* ComicBook/NickFury, Agent of SHIELD, threw the readers a curve when the identity of ComicBook/{{HYDRA}}'s leader, Don Antonio Caballero, proved to be an alias. Ripping off his life-like mask, the true Supreme Hydra stood revealed as Fury's long missing UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2 arch enemy Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. It was a moment so jarring, artist Jim Steranko made it a two page panel for the occasion.

* In the original [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' comic book, The Big Man--a New York crimelord and leader of the Enforcers--was revealed to be Frederick Foswell, a browbeaten reporter at ''The Daily Bugle''.
** This is something of a reoccurring theme among Spider-Man villains. The original Green Goblin was eventually revealed to be ComicBook/NormanOsborn, the father of his best friend (this being long before Norman established himself as the AlternateCompanyEquivalent of ComicBook/LexLuthor). The Jackal, better known as the villain who set up ComicBook/TheCloneSaga, was Peter's nerdy science professor. The Hobgoblin, a villain modeled after the Green Goblin, had a two-for-one deal. He was originally revealed to be a Daily Bugle reporter and longtime minor supporting cast member Ned Leeds until a RetCon explained that he was yet another minor supporting character who had since faded into near-obscurity.

* In ''ComicBook/BatmanEternal'', all of Batman's RoguesGallery are brought together and manipulated by a mysterious hidden villain who seems to have learned Batman's identity. Each time Batman seems to be getting close to a big mastermind (Hush, ComicBook/TheRiddler, Owlman, even ComicBook/RasAlGhul), it turns out that they were just invited by the real BigBad. In the finale it's revealed that the villain was ''Cluemaster'', a fairly minor member of Batman's rogues who rarely pulled off anything big. As it turns out, Cluemaster had gotten fed up with his constant fights with Batman and decided to apply himself to making a fool-proof scheme to destroy him; to divert attention from himself he invited a bunch of big-name Gotham villains to the team-up to make Batman think the culprit had to be a huge and major enemy like the Joker. [[InvokedTrope That way, Batman was focusing on the idea that the mastermind would be this ungodly powerful person and never stopped to think that any of the c-listers would be able to pull something like this off]]. The twist was ultimately subverted: The plan was indeed Cluemaster's, but far more [[TheUntwist likely and foreshadowed]] villain Lincoln March pulled a HijackedByGanon in order to serve as the story's final boss.
* ComicBook/TheAvengers once encountered a mysterious super-villain called The Crimson Cowl; upon being unmasked, the Cowl was revealed to be "merely a robot", the "real" Cowl being Tony Stark's butler Jarvis; later, Jarvis confessed that he had been forced to impersonate the Cowl under duress, and he begged the "real" Cowl not to kill the Avengers "in the name of humanity"; the Cowl replied "What makes you think I am human?", and unmasked himself to reveal...that he was really the robot all along! (this was the first appearance in comics of the Avengers villain ComicBook/{{Ultron}})

* Occurs in the FramingDevice of horror AnthologyFilm ''Film/Asylum1972Horror'': in order to get a job at a mental asylum, the psychiatrist Dr. Martin has to interview the patients there and determine which of them is really Dr. B. Starr, the former asylum head who had a mental breakdown and [[SplitPersonalityTakeover adopted a new personality]]. None of the patients are B. Starr - Max, the orderly who has been taking him on a tour of the asylum, is...Once Dr. Martin guesses incorrectly, Max takes the opportunity to kill him.

* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes''

* The trope is DoubleSubverted in a first-season episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}''. Throughout that whole season, Martin is obsessed with the [[MyGreatestFailure one case he could never solve]]--the murder of a prostitute who was trying to turn her life around. He eventually reveals that the victim's mother is terminally ill, and he wants to crack the case to give her closure about her daughter's death before she dies herself. Frasier, Niles, and Daphne review the evidence that Martin's laid out on the table, and the Crane brothers come to the conclusion that the prostitute's ex-boyfriend trained his pet monkey to shoot her. They don't want to steal Martin's thunder, though, and so arrange the evidence in such a way that he'll notice the same clues. Sure enough, Martin looks over the photos and rushes out to make the arrest. The next night, he has some old friends over to celebrate, where he reveals the ''actual'' culprit wasn't the monkey, but instead a [[DirtyCop fellow cop]] who claimed to be the first one on the scene; said cop deliberately messed with the victim's DyingClue to throw suspicion off himself. Frasier then comes in, [[PoorCommunicationKills thinks they're still talking about the monkey ]], and promptly makes a fool of himself.

* Occasionally PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/JoanOfArcadia.'' The whole premise is that God gives Joan various tasks to do by [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith assuming the forms of different individuals]]. Most episodes open with her having a casual conversation with someone, only for that person to turn out to be God; she then usually runs into another form of God later in the episode who tells her that she's not quite finished with her mission. Examples include a pizza delivery man, a seven-year-old girl, a newscaster, a Latina woman waiting for a bus, a heavyset girl in the school library, a Goth student, a butcher, a teen in a school mascot costume, and a street musician with a guitar. Humorously, Joan ''tries'' to become GenreSavvy about it and starts assuming that every stranger who speaks to her is God in a disguise; unfortunately, she's just as likely to get it wrong as she is to be correct.

* Be honest. In ''VideoGame/CurseOfTheDeadGods'', did you really expect Clovis Pardieux, a character ''mentioned offhandedly in some of the journal entries,'' to be one of the ''final bosses''? Bonus points for being foreshadowed in a way that sounded like he had simply suffered AFateWorseThanDeath(his sister was told that he had become "[[TheDragon Champion of Death]]").

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder''

* In ''VideoGame/Tropico5'' part of the crime safety system includes people also becoming secret crime lords in addition to their regular job. Dock workers both commonly would live in shacks near their workplace and were the most common source of crime lords. Perhaps owing to interactions with docks as one of the highest crime generating buildings and the geography often forces clustering of docks together. Insidiously, maximum throughput of docks required upon well paid dockworkers, masking a crime lord's anomalous wealth.

* ''Franchise/WhenTheyCry''
** In ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'', this is done so well that even if the BigBad had a creepy moment or two, you wouldn't have known who it was until TheReveal. As it turns out, the mysterious mastermind calling themselves 'Oyashiro-sama', the one behind the conspiracy enveloping the enite village of Hinamizawa, is actually the local [[HospitalHottie cute nurse]], Miyo Takano, who was shown in every single arc, and, as far as the viewer was concerned, had no chance of being the villain. After all, it is extremely difficult to suspect a character that looked like she was promptly killed off [[GroundhogDayLoop every single arc]]. Even with the very few creepy moments before TheReveal, who would suspect that it was the dead nurse faking her death every time? The only big hint was that the estimated time of her fake death was literally a day before Watanagashi, and there were plenty of witnesses who saw her alive during the festival. The mastermind knew the flaw, but used that as an advantage and added it as an extra mystery to confuse people (and the viewers).
** In ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'', the culprit behind the murders claims herself to be the Golden Witch, Beatrice. Battler's mission is to expose her as the normal human culprit he believes her to be. In the seventh arc, Beatrice is revealed to be Shannon ''and'' Kanon, [[TheButlerDidIt two servants]] who are each a SplitPersonality of her. In a reference to ''VisualNovel/ThePortopiaSerialMurderCase'' (another user of this trope), her 'real' name is revealed to be Sayo '''Yasu''''da. Then it turns out that, in reality, Beatrice/Yasu [[DiscOneFinalBoss actually wasn't the ultimate culprit]]. In the real world, the true muderers were Battler's friendly, laid-back parents, Rudolf and Kyrie. In the witch world, the witches who turned Yasu into Beatrice are Bernkastel, who seemed to be Battler's ally and mentor, and Lambdadelta, who seemed to just be a silly minion of Beatrice.

* In [[http://skin-horse.com/comic/2018-08-14-anyone-who-is/ this]] ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'', Ari Green, the Anasigma agent who has been undermining Project Skin Horse the whole time, is revealed to be Ira Rosenkranz, [[ForgetfulJones humorously forgetful security guard]].

* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY'', at first it appears that the mysterious Madame X is using her Malamar to brainwash people and Pokémon for her unknown evil intentions, but it's then revealed that she herself is just a brainwashed Officer Jenny who was used as a decoy and translator by the Malamar, marking the first time in the series that a wild Pokémon has been portrayed as actually evil.

* Happens constantly in Franchise/YuGiOh.
** In [[Anime/YuGiOh the first series]], Marik invokes this by posing as a friend of Bakura’s named Namu, while making it appear that his servant Odion is him. Joey isn’t fooled when he sees that Odion is too much of a NobleDemon to be Marik.
** In Anime/YuGiOhGX, Nightshroud is introduced as part of the first QuirkyMinibossSquad, and later comes back during the second season. The final season reveals that all the events of the show were a prelude to the coming of his true form, an EldritchAbomination as old as the universe itself.
** [[Anime/YuGiOhZexal ZEXAL II]] has Yuma’s new friend Ray, who is introduced as TheDitz, before revealing he’s a detective ObfuscatingStupidity, before revealing that he’s actually Vector, the BigBad of the series so far.
** [[Anime/YuGiOhArcV Arc-V]] takes this to the logical conclusion, with the BigBad turning out to be TheHero. Not that he’s aware of it.
** [[Anime/YuGiOhSevens SEVENS]] has Swirly, a kid in a chameleon costume who joins the gang just as 5 of the 6 Goha Siblings appear. No prizes for guessing who the 6th turns out to be.

* In ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'', the overarching plot across all [[OtomeGame routes]] concerns an attack on the RFA [[BigBad orchestrated by]] a mysterious hacker called 'Unknown', a leader of the strange {{cult}} Mint Eye. Unknown is not an example, as he is [[StrangerBehindTheMask a stranger to the protagonist]] known only to his brother Seven and a few others, but he [[DiscOneFinalBoss is working for]] someone whom he calls 'the Savior'- revealed in the Secret Ending to be ''Rika'', the [[BitchInSheepsClothing kind, gentle, and loving]] girlfriend of V ''who was thought to have [[DrivenToSuicide killed herself]]''. In fact, she [[DomesticAbuse treated V like crap]] and created Mint Eye in part to ruin him. V lied to the others, telling them she died, to shield them from the AwfulTruth about [[BrokenPedestal the RFA's beloved founder]].

* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinYOungblood'': When finally meeting [[BigBad General Lothar]], it turns out he was living by your sides this whole time, having infiltrated the Resistance pretending to be a mute wounded veteran named Jacques. He's nothing more than a butler until the reveal.

* ''Medici'': The killer of Giovanni de Medici turns out to be the bank manager Ugo, who usually only appeared in a few scenes.

* ''[[Literature/LordPeterWimsey The Nine Tailors]]'', the killer turns out to be the Fenchurch St. Paul church bells.

* The primary antagonist of ''VideoGame/DeathEndReQuest 2'' is Julietta, the friendly social services worker who, prior to the reveal, did nothing of note beyond bringing Mai and Liliana to Le Choara. Julietta is actually the older sister of Lydia Nolan, the [[RealityWarper reality-warping "Observer"]] from the first game, and is out for revenge on the first game's protagonist for capturing Lydia's affection to the point that Lydia [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight dooms herself to execution in order to save him and his reality]].

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the man responsible for [[BigBad All For One]]'s comeback was MadScientist Dr. Garaki, ''[[TheHero Deku]]'s pediatrician'' who was seen all the way back in Chapter 1 breaking the news to him that he was Quirkless.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': In the main game, it's hinted that the City's founders who rebuilt after and restarted the fight against Moebius contained a seventh member lost to history, with their only mention being that they refused to have a statue in their honour as the other six founders did. Come ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3FutureRedeemed'' and it seems that A, a mysterious individual that fights alongside the founders and is [[spoiler:an incarnation of Alvis from the first game]] is the mysterious seventh founder, but the reality is that it's none other than [[spoiler:''Riku'', the nopon blacksmith that journeyed not only with the founders but the maingame protagonists over 1000 years later despite his claims that he's nothing more than a [[BlatentLies "common variety nopon"]]. It's implied the reason is a mixture of wanting to keep a low profile so he can travel in secret and hide the fact that he's technically immortal, and because he's actual rather modest and isn't a fan of being in the spotlight or throwing any star power around.]]

->'''Nostalgia Critic''': Franchise/ScoobyDoo!\\
'''Doctor Hack''': It's always that character who had one scene you forgot about.

* In ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Other Woman" a man breaks into a lawyer’s office, kills him and his secretary, and then burns a file. The chief suspects are the client who’s file was burned (he owed the lawyer money and had made threats to him before), or the client’s next door neighbor who he was in a property dispute with and who may have murdered her ex husband. The actual killer of the week was a background character with only one scene prior to the reveal; he’s been cut out of his grandfather’s will, broke into the office to replace the will with one that left him with everything, and killed the lawyer since he’d know it wasn’t the real will.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}'', Count Micheal Zeppelin is the leader of the RKS rebellion against the Holy Empire, but the person responsible for driving him to rebel turns out to be Kahl Palesch, Liebea's unseen brother who was only mentioned in her cutscenes and was supposedly captured by the Empire, but was actually an Empire spy sent to kill Micheal's daughter Iris...except that Iris ''herself'', seemingly an average DamselInDistress, knowingly instigated the war for fun and lied about Kahl being a spy to [[HeKnowsTooMuch keep him from exposing her plans]]. In the sequel, ''~Freudenstachel~'', she also instigated the church's founding of the Schwarzkreuz and the witch-hunt of the Magi (with help from Eifer Skute).

* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs", it is revealed that Monk met Bob Costas after helping him out with the matter of a cat salesman who sold demented cats. In particular, Monk proved that Costas's cat planned to kill him with a squeeze toy. Later subverted when Monk reveals he only said that so they would leave.