Most Definitely Not A Villain - Television Tropes & Idioms

Mr. Verres's "ingenious methods to cover up the presence of aliens"

"My fellow bad guys, I, Lex Luthor, your leader, will speak now about my, Lex Luthor's, plan. My villainous, villainous plan. Question the plan at your peril. Uh... any questions?"

— The Flash in Lex Luthor's body, Justice League Unlimited, "The Great Brain Robbery"

A character is put into a position where they must act like X (for example, they are The Mole, or are going through a Freaky Friday). Somehow the character, instead of simply acting like X, attempts to go this by constantly announcing they are X, like doing X things because that's what X does, and there is not the slightest chance that they could ever not be X. Did they mention they're X?

Despite the character's total failure at being X, nobody seems to catch on. Ever. They may notice that "X" is Not Himself today, and suspect that he/she is not feeling well, but it takes some sort of massive reveal to for them actually put two and two together and come up with anything other than five. Even if they've known X for years. Guess that they were handing out free Idiot Balls that day.

Compare Master Of Delusion, Clark Kenting, Blatant Lies and Hugh Mann. If a zombie were to say they aren't a zombie, well then it would not be a zombie, now would it? Kind of a subtrope of Bad Bad Acting, although it isn't deliberate. Tends to fuse with Suspiciously Specific Denial.

Named for a line in the Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series spinoff Cr@psule Monsters; "My name is Dr. Alex Brisbane. I'm definitely not a villain."

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Sousuke does this in the Full Metal Panic! novel Dancing Very Merry Christmas when masquerading as a ship hijacker. Naturally, the hostages have a bit of trouble taking them seriously.
Sousuke: Anyway, we are a cruel and unusual terrorist organization that will not show mercy towards women and children. Resistance is death!...Though our guns are loaded with rubber stun bullets, they are enough to make those opposing us cry-
Kurz: No, they're real bullets, remember?
Sousuke: Oh, that's right. These are brutal slab bullets. They will kill a target in one shot. I am not lying.

Comic Books

Legion Of Superheroes had a storyline involving shape-shifters Chameleon Boy and Ronn-Karr sucessfully infiltrating each other's teams. Both were telepathically conditioned to believe they were who they were imitating, meaning both did it TOO well - Cham, imitating Persuader, went on a homicidal rampage, while Ronn-Karr, imitating Superman, helped bring him down.
A scene in a Buck Godot: Zap Gun For Hire comic has Buck disguised as an alien Pog, sauntering down the street singing a song about how he's just a Pog, no, really. Mind you, in this instance having the disguise fail is actually part of the plan.
- For context, Buck Godot is at least eight feet and probably a half ton of muscle, bio-engineered for life on heavy gravity planets. Your typical pog may, generously, top four feet.

Film

In This Island Earth, a dinner conversation with Exeter quickly makes it clear he's not from Earth. When it was chosen to be the experiment for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Tom Servo repeatedly riffs on this part, concluding, "Then I ram my ovipositor down your throat and lay my eggs in your chest. But I'm not an alien!"
From The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra:
"Sometimes my wife forgets she is not a space alien."
The otherwise forgettable Corky Romano gives us this wonderful gem: "I was wondering if I could purchase some heroin and then we could go out and do some hate crimes and stuff."
Cats And Dogs: "Yes, I am your employer, Mr. Mason. NOT an evil cat bent on taking over the world."

Literature

In More Information Than You Require, John Hodgman makes it very clear that he does not have an elephant's brain pickled in a jar.
Averted in Animorphs by the yeerks. The yeerks can fool close friends and in at least one case, a spouse. Of course, it helps that they're sitting on top of their host's brain and can access any of the information stored there pretty easily.
In Warrior Cats Hawkfrost manages to badmouth his superiors and abuse his sister, as well as occasionally lapse into a random world domination rant, without anyone taking much notice (Well, except for Squirrelflight and Leafpool). At one point he even yells about how one day he will be in charge in public, and yet no one even looks his way. Even after he helps organize a failed coup d'etat in Starlight, everyone still loves him.
Winnie The Pooh pretends to be a little cloud when he tries to use a balloon to steal honey for a beehive. This includes having his friend Christopher Robin walking back and forth below him with an umbrella and loudly proclaim that it will be rain soon.

Live Action TV

In Saul Of The Molemen, Saul skins a moleman and uses the skin as a disguise to infiltrate the moleman village. He spends the day shouting, "Grunt grunt! I'm a moleman, just like you!". No one catches on, but Saul is still beaten up, as the moleman whose skin he wore owed money to others.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Doppelgangland": Willow (well, Season 3 Willow, anyway) pretending to be her vampire duplicate was doomed to failure. "I killed her. And sucked her blood, as we vampires do." She lasts all of five minutes before the others catch on.
- And her vampire duplicate is equally pathetic at passing herself off as the human Willow—though far more successful, because she's talking to the ever self-absorbed Cordelia. "Why don't you let me out, 'cause I'm... so helpless." In fact, there's an enormous distinction between Willow, vamp Willow, Willow posing as vamp Willow, and vamp Willow posing as Willow. This was the ep where this troper realized Alyson Hanigan could really act.
- On the other hand, the Scoobies were completely oblivious to the true nature of the BuffyBot in her first appearance, despite stilted dialogue along the lines of "I wouldn't keep a secret from you, Willow. You're my best friend. You're recently gay." Buffy was understandably irritated.
  - Yet another Buffy example: when Faith exchanges bodies with Buffy, she spends about three minutes practicing saying 'Because it's wrong ' very emphatically and with different inflections in front of a mirror. It's amusing.
  - She later says this seriously in a case of becoming the mask
Angel also played on this in the episode "Guise Will Be Guise", in which Wesley found in necessary to impersonate Angel. When his cover was blown, he tried horribly to keep up the facade.
In the first episode of the new Doctor Who, Rose's boyfriend Mickey is replaced by a plastic replica. Rose begins to wonder what's the matter with Mickey when he keeps addressing her as "sweetheart/babe/babe/friend/sugar/sweetheart".
- Subverted in a later episode when Cassandra takes over Rose's body. Of course the Doctor knows something is wrong, but he jumps to the wrong conclusion.
- The teenage "son" from the Family of Blood spends two episodes walking around looking as suspicious as is humanly possible. It only works because he pulls it off in such a magnificently creepy way.
On an episode of Charmed, this trope is subverted when Cole immediately notices that Paige and Phoebe have switched bodies. He doesn't tell Phoebe that he noticed until after he has made a move on her whilst she was in Paige's body. Or So I Heard.
C'mon, wasn't Simon acting as Mal's boss in "Jaynestown" like this?
Simon: Yes? (playing up role) I mean, I make the decisions around here, uh— employee... (to Foreman) I employ him. He is a person I employ. I'm the boss.
Subverted in, of all things, Star Trek. In "Mirror, Mirror," (you know, the episode with the evil parallel universe where everyone has a beard), the prime-universe crew members manage, with great difficulty, to pass themselves off as their evil counterparts. After reversing whatever Negative Space Wedgie dumped them in the evil universe and returning home, they briefly worry about the damage that their evil doppelgangers might have caused, only to discover that Spock immediately noticed their odd behavior and confined them to the brig five minutes after their arrival.

Video Games

In Star Control II, one of the many Planet Of Hats species in the game comes under the mind control of a malevolent being, who stiltedly attempts to impersonate their particular Hat when encountered by the player. Naturally, the player is expected to not be stupid and investigate.
This is the key mechanic for an entire level in Psychonauts, "The Milkman Conspiracy", where the player must collect objects being used by a series of trenchcoat-clad ~~"government operatives"~~ plumbers, road crew workers, gardeners, housewives, grieving widows, and assassins, among other, increasingly unlikely roles, and use them as a Paper Thin Disguise.
- The G-men tend to use the props in very interesting ways too. The gardeners do a sword-swallowing routine with their hedge clippers and the grieving widows play invisible golf with their flowers.
- Sample dialogue: I am a Sewer Worker. The finest sewers are found in Paris, France. Although I often smell of excrement, I perform a valuable public service.
  - And, because this particular troper lacks the discipline to restrain his quoting urge... In time my husband will desire me less sexually... but he will always enjoy my pies.
- There's also Crispin Whytehead, the inmate running the asylum, who explains that he is an orderly, not an impostor.
In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Furio Tigre's impersonation of Phoenix consists of having spiky hair and declaring himself to be Phoenix Wright. Despite his otherwise completely different appearance, his noticeable accent, and his wearing a fake attorney's badge made of cardboard, he fools an entire courtroom, including a judge, prosecutor, detective, and defendant who are all familiar with Phoenix. Phoenix himself is, of course, not amused.
- There's a possible Lampshade Hanging on this, after hearing the excuses Tigre gave to Maggey ("He said he took a trip to Hawaii"):
  Phoenix: I can see why he managed to fool everyone.
  That is if we take that as part of his usual tendency to Snark.
  - Kind of justified in that Tigre made continued threats to anyone that implied he was not Phoenix Wright. And he's kind of scary, according to, well, everyone in the courtroom.
  - Except Godot. Godot was calm the whole time. This troper thinks Godot is a pretty cool guy. Eh drinks coffee and DOESN'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING.
  - Also Godot was the only one NOT fooled, however he didn't say anything as he wanted to spite Phoenix
At one point in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, a shape-shifting ghost called Doopliss, but it won't help you assumes Mario's identity and runs off with all of his party members. Aside from a few party members pointing out his somewhat different personality, they buy his impersonation without question. (In a Mythology Gag, Mario is a Heroic Mime in this game, while the ghost loudly proclaims that he is Mario and shouts phrases from Super Mario 64 to prove it.)
- Somewhat justified in that Doopliss did the Martian Manhunter trick mentioned above and changed places with Mario when they defeated him, leaving Mario unconscious and going back to town with the others. Being a doppleganger, he has a perfect disguise, at least until he opens his mouth.
  - And Mario's appearance changes as well. He turns black and shadowy.
In Sam and Max: The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball, Ted E. Bear's Mafia-Free Playland and Casino is a Mob-themed Chuck E. Cheese's-esque arcade/restaurant that doesn't seem to try very hard to convince the outside world that it's not a front for the Toy Mafia.
- Then there's the theme song, which is catchy as hell:
  Ted E. Bear's is oodles of fun
  Slots and sandwiches and poker and guns
  And look, no mobsters, nary a one,
  Just you and me and Ted E. Bear!
Not a villain, in Super Robot Wars the pilot Rastel Feinschmecker is Most Definitely Not Elzam Branstien or Rai's brother. May overlap with The Goggles Do Nothing, as he trys to use them to Clark Kent. No one is fooled
- He's definitely not a villain.

Web Comics

Belkar the halfling got on stilts to disguise himself as a human in Order Of The Stick.
Belkar: Hello, fellow Medium-sized creature! How are you enjoying being Medium-sized, like me, on this lovely day?
Man: Just fine, thanks for asking!
- Also, Nale disguising himself as Elan. Though his repeated statements of "I'm Elan" don't raise any eyebrows since that is deemed in character for Elan. Nale's high bluff skill also helps. Example:
  Sabine: He was just speaking to me, a police officer, about his brother Nale's treatment in prison.
  Nale: Right! Because I am Elan, and I am foolishly and inexplicably merciful to enemies who would gladly butcher me, against the better judgement of my allies.
  Vaarsuvius: Hmmm. Well, that certainly is one of your more puzzling qualities. Very well.
  - On the other hand, immediately after that exchange, Vaarsuvius correctly guessed that the two had been making out (incidentally, Sabine's "police officer" form was male).
  - "Guessed"? Vaarsuvius saw them making out.
  - Which certainly adds weight to Vaarsuvius' guess.
This Bob And George comic.
In Gunnerkrigg Court, the Robots try to hide their presence from the humans by labeling their secret entrance and their spare part storage room "Boring Door" and "NO spare robot parts", respectively. Appropriately enough, Annie adopts the same strategy (in conjunction with a Paper Thin Disguise) to sneak past Doorbot:
Antimony: We are looking for a particular robot. A... fellow robot. Because we are also robots.
Lord "Smith" is Most Definitely Not Lord Milligan.
In Terror Island, Theorem 183, Demon-Jame tries to pass himself off as Jame.
Demon-Jame: Yes, I am your friend. I run a non-demon restaurant here in your space-time manifold, of which I am a native.
In these 8-Bit Theatre strips, Warmech is Most Definitely Not A Robot.
This Amazoness! strip. Ekphobippe is a master of disguise.
RpgWorld subverts this mightily, by having a character who looks almost exactly like the main villain show up out of nowhere and ask to join the hero's party for no real reason. Only one party member suspects that he might actually be hiding something, but no one believes her...and then it turns out she was wrong and he actually IS a good guy who just happens to look like the villain.
In ElGoonishShive, all you have to do to convince everyone that you're a normal, everyday human being is to wear a T-shirt that says so on it. In fact, Tedd's father makes a living covering up supernatural or alien entities in such a manner, as seen, for example, here.

Western Animation

Justice League Unlimited,' The Flash posing as Luthor, as mentioned above. Two people seemed to have caught on, but kept it to themselves for their own reasons (Gorilla Grodd, who wanted to see him squirm, and Tala, who liked "new" Lex better. Especially in bed...). The rest assumed he fried his brain trying to Mind Probe Grodd.
- A rare heroic example of a subversion from the same series: Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society has apparently defeated the Justice League. Clayface asks, like any reasonable villain would, why they aren't just going to kill them. Grodd, with his newfound appreciation for showmanship, insists they do it publically...but at the pivotal moment, it turns out Manhunter took Clayface's place; the "Manhunter" the Secret Society captured was in turn actually Clayface. J'onn being a psychic probably helped, though.
The episode "Fear Of A Bot Planet" in Futurama.
Guard-bot #2: Be you robot or human?
Leela: Robot... we be.
Fry: Uh, yup. Just two robots out robot-ing it up!
- Also subverted in another episode which features Flexo, Bender's identical brother who only differs in having a goatee. Fry and Leela then find a Bender-like robot who constantly hides his chin behind a pullover or a map, so they assume it is Flexo.
Fry: Hey Bender!
Robot: Yes, it's me...Bender

The twist is, that it really is Bender.

Robot Chicken: In an A-Team spoof, Face attempts to infiltrate the criminal underworld by announcing "Greetings. Is this where the thugs and/or criminals hang out? Because I too am a thug and/or criminal." He is recognized immediately.
In an episode of Rockos Modern Life, Heffer tries to sneak into a nightclub for elk by putting on a pair of fake antlers and telling the bouncer "I am an elk. I have antlers." The bouncer quips "You want a prize?" before letting him in.
Subverted in an episode of Out Of Jimmy's Head. When Sunny unveils his Jimbotron, a robot double of the protagonist Jimmy, it looks like a sub-B-grade science fiction movie robot with an unconvincing wig and one of Jimmy's shirts, which barely fits it. Sunny also has it say things like "If I'm not Jimmy, why would I steal one of his shirts?" It spectacularly fails to fool anyone except Jimmy's idiot father, and even he had to be missing his contacts.
In one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splinter and Shredder's minds are accidentally swapped. Splinter manages to bluff his way through, after almost being found out when he doesn't sufficiently insult and belittle Shredder's two idiot minions Rock Steady and Be-Bop.
Danny Phantom: Danny does this when overshadowing his father in "Parental Bonding".
In The Simpsons, Bart barely convinces a group of children from Shelbyville that he is one of them. "No, not in my mouth! ...uh, is what that kid would say."
Invader Zim invokes this trope by necessity in order to maintain his Paper Thin Disguise ("I'm human! Yep, human, human, human. Just look at my neck!"). In the episode "Abducted" however, he encounters a pair of even stupider aliens who have even worse disguises and invoke the trope even harder.
One episode of The Tick involves a shoddy green clone of Arthur who says nothing but "I Arthur". Naturally, the Tick can't tell them apart.
An episode of Ben 10 Alien Force features an alien with a copied Omnitrix stuck in Ben's form. When he first attempts to pass himself off as the real Ben, he says stuff like "Yes, it is I, Ben Tennyson. Escort me, Ben 10, to my domicile."
In Transformers Animated, when Wasp disguises himself as Bumblebee (and makes Bumblebee look like Wasp), his disguise is compromised by his penchant for talking in the third person, and his habit of calling Bumblebee 'Bumblebot'. The same happens to Bumblebee, except because of his lack of third-person speaking. Naturally, no-one notices.

Web Original

As mentioned above, Dr Alex Brisbane. He may lure the heroes into an obvious trap, but he's still definitely not a villain. Of course, as the people he has to fool are Joey, Tristan, Tea and Yugi not a one of them thinks there's anything strange about him.
- Well, Yugi does. Though his reaction is less "he's definitely a villain!" and more "I'm tired of rescuing people. Let's just go home and forget this happened." Unluckily, Brisbane easily tricks Tristan and Tea to "step on the map", dragging Yugi along for the ride.
Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog invokes this a version of this trope when Penny introduces Captain Hammer to Billy at the laundromat.
Billy: We're meeting now for first time.
- Also, it doesn't actually fool Hammer, who just waits until Penny's out of earshot to make it clear he knows.

Real Life

Tourists. Their "I ♥ NY" T-shirts give them away EVERY time.
- I just came back from NYC, and personally I would have thought it was that they were the only ones waiting for the pedestrian lights.
- Actually Lampshaded in CSINY. When they find a victim wearing such a shirt, they immediately assume it's a tourist. They are right.

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