History Main / FalseInnocenceTrick

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E41TheHowlingMan The Howling Man]]", a man stumbles upon a castle and finds a prisoner held captive by the monks who live there. The prisoner claims he's being held unjustly by an insane religious order, which seems to be confirmed when the head of the order insists that the prisoner is actually the Devil in disguise. The man decides to free the prisoner, and only then finds out that he really ''is'' the Devil in disguise. The man spends many years searching for him to atone for his mistake and finally traps him again. Naturally, the man's maid [[HereWeGoAgain thinks he's crazy for insisting that his prisoner is the Devil]]...

Compare WoundedGazelleGambit, TheFarmerAndTheViper, and BitchInSheepsClothing for other cases of villains [[BatmanGambit taking advantage of the hero's trusting nature]].

Contrast the more common DecoyDamsel and DisguisedHostageGambit for when a villain makes a genuine prisoner look like a bad guy.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'', "After Hours": Castle and Beckett interview a witness to a murder, and an unfortunate series of events leaves them without a phone and Beckett's badge, gun, and car. As they flee from the people that want the witness dead, it eventually becomes apparent that the man they're escorting isn't a witness to the murder, but the murderer himself. It takes an OutOfCharacterMoment for Beckett to get them out of the situation.

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero'', Sub-Zero ([[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 the elder]]) is imprisoned in the Netherrealm. His fellow prisoner is normally Scorpion, but if the player decided not to kill Hanzo Hasashi, then the other prisoner is [[spoiler:Shinnok, the BigBad of this game and VideoGame/MortalKombat4]]. He claims that he's an unjustly imprisoned soul like Sub-Zero and notes that he's playing [[BigGood Raiden's]] "game" for the time being. His manipulation of Sub-Zero indirectly helps [[spoiler:himself escape from the Netherrealm several years down the road]].

** Inverted in the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "The Wish". Wishverse!Buffy finds Angel imprisoned by The Master and is unsure whether she should let him go at first, though she ultimately does when he shows the torture scars the Master has given him and suggests an EnemyMine alliance.

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'':

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Quality of Mercy", Major John Skokes and a female cadet are held prisoner on an alien world. She is taken for more experiments and wants just to die. At the climax, we find [[spoiler:the woman is really an alien spy — and Skokes just told the aliens humanity's battle plans in an attempt to give her hope. In a later episode, "The Light Brigade", another alien disguises itself as Skokes to hijack a ship with a weapon which can destroy the alien world then uses it to destroy Earth in its place.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': This is how we meet our first Vorta, Eris, as a "prisoner" of the Jem'Hadar.

** When Captain Picard was [[AlienAbduction abducted by aliens]] in "Allegiance", [[spoiler:one of his fellow abductees is really a member of the alien race that captured them]].
** Troi, O'Brien, and Data were [[GrandTheftMe bodyjacked]] by noncorporeal beings in "Power Play". They claimed to be survivors of a Starfleet vessel that had crashed on an uncharted world about two hundred years before. [[spoiler:They were actually some convicted criminals from a penal colony there]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E41TheHowlingMan The Howling Man]]". A man stumbles upon a castle and finds a prisoner held captive by the monks who live there. The prisoner claims he's being held unjustly by an insane religious order, which seems to be confirmed when the head of the order insists that the prisoner is actually the Devil in disguise. The man decides to free the prisoner, and only then finds out that he really ''is'' the Devil in disguise. The man spends many years searching for him to atone for his mistake and finally traps him again. Naturally, the man's maid [[HereWeGoAgain thinks he's crazy for insisting that his prisoner is the Devil...]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Film]]

** You can find a golden skull in one of the houses which begs you to free it by finding the missing parts of its body. In order to get them, you need to loot two sarcophagi guarded by liches. Then you put the missing pieces in the skull's coffin... congratulations! A BonusBoss.

** Another episode involves Phoebe finding a benevolent Genie in a Bottle, whose only desire is to be wished free so she can escape a demon planning on using her to raise a city of evil. But once free, the Genie is revealed to be a badass demon, and Phoebe is transformed into a Genie herself, forced to take her place.

* The ending of ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' has this, with [[spoiler: "Mrs. Bates" having pulled a SplitPersonalityTakeover on Norman, deciding to let him take the fall for the murders that "she" had committed. As put in her closing narration: "They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly.'"]]

** In "The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow" in ''Dragon'' magazine #42, the player characters are Boy Scouts investigating a haunted house. In one room is what appears to be an innocent maiden chained to the wall. She is actually a [[HornyDevils succubus]] and very hungry.

* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'': In "Beware, the Snowman", Jaclyn [=DeForest=] runs into a living snowman in a mountain cave. The snowman claims he is her long lost father who was trapped in that form and trapped on the mountain by an evil witch. He gets her to recite a special song to free him. It turns out he is not her father, he is an evil demon whom the benevolent witch trapped.

* In Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'' TV series, Evil Manta used this trick and got released by Ariel. Another monster unsuccessfully tried this after making Triton a child.

-->--'''Mrs. Bates''', ''Film/{{Psycho}}''

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': The Harrowing, the final test for students of the MageTower in the Mage origin involves a fellow student trapped in the DreamWorld of the fade… only he’s actually [[OurDemonsAreDifferent a demon]] of {{Pride}} attempting DemonicPossession of the warden.

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Quality of Mercy", Major Stokes and a female cadet are held prisoner on an alien world. She is taken for more experiments and wants just to die. At the climax, we find [[spoiler:the woman is really an alien spy — and the man just told the aliens humanity's battle plans in an attempt to give her hope. In a later episode, another alien disguises itself as the man to hijack a ship with a weapon which can destroy the alien world then uses it to destroy Earth in its place.]]

* ''VideoGame/BrothersATaleOfTwoSons'': The brothers rescue a girl about to be slain by gnomes. [[spoiler:She is a mass-murdering [[SpiderPeople spider person]] in disguise and she kills the elder brother after accompanying them for most of the rest of their journey]].

* ''Film/BirdBox''. While looting a supermarket for supplies, the group hear someone pounding on a locked door pleading for help. When they open the door, he turns out to be one of the crazies who are forcing people to look at the {{Brown Note Being}}s so they will go crazy as well. One of the group does a HeroicSacrifice and the others are horrified to see a pool of his blood seeping under the door, followed by the crazy person once again pounding on the door and pleading for someone to let him in...

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': During an early flashback, Oliver comes across a man chained up in a cave, who claims to be a fisherman who was marooned on Lian Yu and tortured by the villains. Oliver is torn between wanting to help him and suspicion that it's a trap, and ultimately leaves him behind. A quick shot in a later episode reveals that [[spoiler:he was working for the villains]].

* A variation is used in the first season of ''Manga/DetectiveConan''. A female kidnapper poses as the girl she's abducted, using a blindfold and a [[BoundAndGagged piece of duct tape over her mouth]] to hide her identity. When the ransom drop-off falls apart, she manages to escape while leaving the police baffled (since they believe the kidnapper somehow managed to slip away while lugging around a tied up hostage, a sight which would have surely attracted attention from onlookers).

** In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'': you can find a beggar in Forbidden Woods who is [[ObviouslyEvil eating a corpse]]. [[spoiler: Should you send him to Oedon Chapel, he starts to murder the inhabitants in the church, but shares the Beast Blood Pellets with you for each kill. Of course, you can always [[EvilerThanThou send this Abhorrent Beast to Iosefka's Clinic]]. Subverted in that he ''is'' indeed innocent, for a beast. He only preys on people [[NecessarilyEvil because of what he needed]], rather than murdering without reason. Should you engage him in a fight, he throws a NotSoDifferent speech, claiming the Hunter is [[EvilerThanThou far more despicable]] and [[PlayerPunch plays this gambit more often than him.]]]]

## [[MissingStepsPlan ?????]]
## [[GambitRoulette Just as planned]]!

* The ending of ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' has this, with [[spoiler: "Mrs. Bates" having pulled a SplitPersonalityTakeover on Norman, deciding to let him take the fall for the murders that "she" had committed. As put in her closing narration: "They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly.'"[[/quoteblock]]