History Main / TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':

* ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'' has the King of Vices, the ShadowDictator of the Republic of Heiburg, who passes herself off as a plain-looking and meek soldier with a standard Drag-ride. Meanwhile, her decoy and fake boss was brainwashed into being ObviouslyEvil in facial expression and behavior in order to emphasize their contrasting outward personalities.

This is when a villain doesn't look like a villain and is even more terrifying because of it. This does not apply to particularly handsome or charming villains - that goes under EvilIsSexy, BeautyIsBad or FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon. Characters following this trope look completely ordinary. You could pass them on the street and [[BeneathNotice never notice them]], let alone suspect they murdered someone just the other day.

An EnfantTerrible is usually one of these. This trope may more often than not overlap with TomTheDarkLord, which is for a villain with a mundane name. Contrast ObviouslyEvil and DevilInPlainSight, as well as FaceOfAThug (when someone is good or well-adjusted despite having a thug face). Compare ManchurianAgent, where they genuinely are like everyone else until triggered, and AnticlimacticUnmasking, where someone with a distinct disguise looks like this without it. Related with but not to be confused for TheyLookLikeUsNow, where previously inhuman beasties learn to pass for human. TheNondescript is when their "normalness" is taken so far that people can't even remember what they're like. May intersect with RidiculouslyAverageGuy, who looks and acts utterly normal in every respect.

* To an extent, BOB from ''Series/TwinPeaks''. He basically looks like an extra from a bar scene - a denim-clad old man with stringy grey hair who smells like burnt motor oil. In fact, given that his entire presence in the show is basically a case of ThrowItIn, his appearance is mostly modeled on what the set dresser happened to be wearing the day he got accidentally caught in the shot. On the other hand, you probably couldn't have a conversation with him, since he mostly runs around snarling at people and hiding in the woods.

** In the episode "Intersections In Real Time", Sheridan has been captured and is being tortured in a prison cell somewhere. The TortureTechnician who comes to make him give a FalseConfession is not a [[AxCrazy bloodthirsty brute]], but a mild-looking and mostly soft-spoken bureaucrat who looks like a family accountant or somebody's math teacher, and who administers ElectricTorture and [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink poisoned food]] like it's just another day on the job. WordOfGod is that this was all intentional, as the creator wanted to remind his fans that not all evil men look or even ''act'' evil.
** While he's almost exclusively HeWhoMustNotBeSeen, the few times [[PresidentEvil President Clark]] is seen onscreen he has an ordinary appearance, and the fact that his name is so ordinary also adds into this trope.
** This is definitely not in effect for Mr. Morden, the most frequent [[MouthOfSauron human representative]] of [[EldritchAbomination The]] [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Shadows]], but it is when Captain Sheridan briefly meets Justin, the highest ranking human working for The Shadows. Justin is a middle-aged man who has the air of a kindly grandfather, complete with a cane, bushy mustache, and enormous eyebrows. The very first thing he does upon meeting Sheridan is to invite Sheridan to have tea and explains that he has chamomile tea prepared because it helps Justin to sleep at night. If you saw him walking a hypothetical grandchild down the street, you'd probably automatically smile and/or nod at him just because he seems so likable.
* ''Series/{{Batwoman|2019}}'' give us the Candy Lady, a white suburban woman who kidnaps kids and cruelly brainwashes them so that they can be sold to the gangs. In a universe where most of the villains have either a mask, a cool outfit, or a facial deformity, Candy Lady has absolutely nothing that makes her stand out. Probably everyone who watches the show has seen at least one woman who looks almost exactly like her.

** A composite drawing of a suspect in "Buzzkill" is so generic, Mac snarks to Angell, "So all we have to do is find everybody with two eyes, a nose and a mouth."
** The perp in "Party Down" is described as a male with "dark hair, light skin and a bit of a stutter."
* There's a certain stereotypical look you tend to see for hardcore [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters OPA members]] in ''Series/TheExpanse'': tall, [[note]]due to living all their lives in low or zero gravity environment, which elongates bones and joints, and also makes bones far more fragile[[/note]] muscular, [[note]]as a result of working out fanatically to overcome muscular atrophy and the aforementioned brittle bones that result from living in space[[/note]] and men almost always have slightly overgrown beards and punk style haircuts. Regardless of gender, most have facial or neck tattoos that are a symbol of their grudges against the "Inner Planets", Earth and Mars. By contrast, Marco Inaros is a man of rather normal height and build, with a soft-spoken demeanor, a youthful, clean shaven, and even boyish face (despite [[OlderThanTheyLook being old enough to have a son who is in his late teens-early 20s]]), with no visible tattoos and who prefers to rely on [[TheSocialExpert a front of reasonableness]] and [[TheCharmer charm]] instead of brute force. He's also a [[RenegadeSplinterFaction ruthless radical]] with a plan to go much further than pretty much any other OPA faction would, by [[spoiler:covering multiple asteroids with [[StealthInSpace Martian Steal Technology]] and [[ColonyDrop launching them at Earth]], which has devastating effects on the entire planet]]. Ashford lampshades on more than one occasion how Marco is dangerous because he [[ExploitedTrope knows how to exploit this trope]], and make it, his convincing speeches (which often [[VillainHasApoint have a point]]), and his charisma all work for him.

* The defendant in the ''Series/LawAndOrder'' episode "Hubris" is a mild-mannered real estate salesman and a regular [[TheCasanova Casanova]] with the ladies. As it turns out, he also murdered his girlfriend, the old couple who were employing her, and ''her 6-year-old daughter'', all to cover up a fifth murder that he had already committed years before. And while the detectives know he did it because they see security camera footage of the crime (suppressed at trial, [[OffOnATechnicality natch]]), ''the audience'' never sees him doing anything criminal or sinister at all. To the very end of the episode, this mass-murdering scumbag just looks like everyone else.
** In "Bad Faith", an episode involving a PedophilePriest, Van Buren comments on how easily predators blend into normal society, even into positions of trust, and that it's "too bad they don't glow in the dark".

* In the ''Series/MastersOfHorror'' episode "Pick Me Up", the [[EvilVersusEvil dueling serial killers]] Walker and Wheeler both look fairly inconspicuous as a young drifter and a middle-aged trucker, respectively. Walker discusses the trope proper:

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': "M.I.A." features a hitman who seems like a perfectly ordinary, harmless man. A perfect cover, as Reese and Finch realize.

* ''Series/{{The Sandman|2022}}'':

* The killer in "[[Recap/SherlockS01E01AStudyInPink A Study in Pink]]", the first episode of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'', is an unassuming old man that works as a cab driver.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. The fact that the demons and monsters can and will look like anyone else is very heavily used on the show.

* Heroic variant: The Regents in ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' are not at all what Artie expected. However, they all look a little ''too'' ordinary...

** Eugene Tooms in the episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms".
** Donnie Pfaster of "Irresistible". Scully comments on how extraordinarily ordinary he is in her closing report on the case.
** John Lee Roche, the serial-killer-of-girls on "Paper Hearts", looks and talks like a balding salesman, which he was before he got caught.
** The vampire town in "Bad Blood".
** The villain in "Folie a Deux" was a giant monster, disguised as a human being in a normal company.
** Though not a villain, the alien in "The Unnatural" lived convincingly like a human baseball player.
** The brain-eating man in "Hungry" took pains to disguise himself. Undisguised, he resembled a cross between a bald man and a shark.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Dongsoo Seon from the [[KoreanWebtoon webtoon]] ''{{Webcomic/Bastard|2014}}'' looks like an ordinary father and businessman. He's actually a SerialKiller who's been murdering women for years. His son Jin even discusses this trope, noting, "Amazingly enough, [[BeneathNotice no one suspects a murderer if he has a child with him]]."

* ''Film/Barbarian'': Frank, at least when he was young, looks like your average Joe of a maintenance worker. This is in spite of the fact that he is a [[spoiler:kidnapping, incestuous, serial rapist]].

* ''Film/BadApples'': The killers in this movie are a pair of teenage girls who spend their Halloween night torturing and murdering anyone who makes them angry. They spend most of the movie wearing masks (even in class, which gets them sent to the principal's office), so their faces aren't shown until the end, when Ella unmasks them while they're both unconscious... they look like ordinary teenager girls.

* In ''Film/TheWorldsEnd'', the alien replacements all look like regular humans... until they attack.

%%** Mr. Fun from the mini-series ''ComicBook/BatmanFamily''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample

* ''Film/ArsenicAndOldLace'': Jonathan Brewster is as ObviouslyEvil as it gets ([[BerserkButton looking like]] Creator/BorisKarloff [[TextualCelebrityResemblance does that]]) and Teddy Brewster is rather obviously nuts (being dressed like [[NapoleonDelusion Theodore Roosevelt while believing that you're Theodore Roosevelt]] does that), but the two elder Brewsters, Abby and Martha, are just a pair of nice little old ladies... who have [[SerialKiller fatally poisoned twenty]] [[KillThePoor homeless people]] and buried them in their home's basement by the time the story takes place and [[ObliviouslyEvil don't think there is anything wrong with that]] (heck, they think that they are doing the homeless ''[[MercyKill an act of kindness]]'').

* Commander Rourke of ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' is an unassuming, outwardly friendly middle aged man compared to the more eccentric members of his team. It makes the part where he has Milo and Kida cornered with a jovial smile on his face all the more creepy, especially when he casually decides to leave an entire civilization to die.

* In the series ''Series/AdamTwelve'', Reed and Malloy were helping a female officer conduct a rape-resistance class at a local college. When one of the attendees asked what a rapist would look like, the lady cop pointed to the pair of heroes and said, "Just like them. A man."

* ''Series/{{The Sandman|2022}}'': Several episodes in the latter half of the first season feature a gathering of {{serial killer}}s; all of them, with maybe a couple of outliers, look like ordinary people you wouldn't look twice at when passing them in the street. The convener of the gathering is a mild-mannered bespectacled little man who looks like a retired accountant or math teacher and makes clothing out of the skins of his victims.

* The guards and staff who run the show in ''Series/SquidGame'' [[spoiler:are no more than regular everyday people, just like the contestants. When Player 119 learns about this by forcing one of the guards to unmask, he is so horrified at the implications that he immediately shoots himself.]]

* Dr. Angus Bimby in ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns'' wouldn't look like your typical rapist turned child sex trafficker just by looking at his average and ordinary-looking appearance alone.

** Yoshikage Kira, the BigBad of ''Manga/DiamondIsUnbreakable'', stands out among the series' major villains by how much he ''doesn't'' stand out; he makes an active effort to be as normal and unremarkable as possible, living a quiet and peaceful life while also regularly murdering women and taking their hands as trophies/"girlfriends". Resemblance to Creator/DavidBowie aside, his appearance is nothing special, which makes for a chilling moment when the heroes lose him in a crowd and realize that he could be ''any'' of the people wandering in the street.

* ''Film/TheNightOfTheHunter'': Harry Powell is either this or a DevilInPlainSight, depending on how sensitive your [[DetectEvil Evildar]] is. To all appearances, a charming and folksy preacher and the best stepfather a KidHero could ever want. Actually a KnifeNut [[TheBluebeard Bluebeard]] SerialKiller.

** [[Literature/NightWatchDiscworld Carcer Dun]] is an AxCrazy KnifeNut who at a glance looks like nothing more than a cheerful fellow with an honest face, which enabled him to [[CopKiller murder an off-duty cop]] who bumped into him through pure rotten luck and didn't even recognize him.

An EnfantTerrible is usually one of these. Contrast ObviouslyEvil and DevilInPlainSight, as well as FaceOfAThug (when someone is good or well-adjusted despite having a thug face). Compare ManchurianAgent, where they genuinely are like everyone else until triggered, and AnticlimacticUnmasking, where someone with a distinct disguise looks like this without it. Related with but not to be confused for TheyLookLikeUsNow, where previously inhuman beasties learn to pass for human. TheNondescript is when their "normalness" is taken so far that people can't even remember what they're like. May intersect with RidiculouslyAverageGuy, who looks and acts utterly normal in every respect.

* A nice one in the Bruce Willis movie ''Film/{{Red}}''. The operatives bump into[[spoiler: a thoroughly ordinary middle-aged woman at the airport, with the most paranoid among them insisting she's a killer, while the others assume he's just crazy. Then after she's released, she turns up again - with a rocket launcher.]]
* ''[[{{Film/Halloween1978}} Halloween]]'': As a six-year-old, Michael Myers is revealed to look like an ordinary dirty blonde boy. In the final minutes of the film, Laurie manages to rip off the adult Michael's mask, revealing that he's still just an ordinary looking brunette young man, though with a fresh eye injury from his fight with Laurie.

* ''[[{{Film/Halloween1978}} Halloween]]'': As a six-year-old, Michael Myers is revealed to look like an ordinary blond boy. In the final minutes of the film, Laurie manages to rip off the adult Michael's mask, revealing that he's still just an ordinary looking blond young man, though with a fresh eye injury from his fight with Laurie.

* Seen in the online Hacking/ Tailing in the [[VideoGame/WatchDogs Watch Dogs]] [[VideoGame/WatchDogs2 Series]]. The enemy players take the appearance of random civilians, so unless they are profiled or act out of the ordinary they are indistinguishable from [=NPCs=].

* The ''Series/BlackMirror'' episode ''Recap/BlackMirrorCrocodile'' features VillainProtagonist Mia, a perfectly ordinary-looking woman who helps her boyfriend cover up a hit-and-run, later proceeding to kill him when he [[TheAtoner is on the verge of confessing]], an unlucky insurance investigator, her husband and [[WouldHurtAChild their baby]] in a desparate attempt to LeaveNoWitnesses.