Wounded Gazelle Gambit - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sleipnir's idiocy just makes it that much easier

"The first girl to cry always wins."

—Sae, Peach Girl

Alice and Eve have both been vying for Bob's affections for weeks, so when the three of them were alone, cleaning the classroom, tensions started to run high. The moment Bob's back was to the girls, Eve threw herself away from Alice, knocking over some desks on her way to the floor. "Why'd you push me!?" she spat at Alice as Bob turned to see what the commotion was. Bob rushed to help Eve up, and, when he noticed she was favoring one foot, help her limp to the nurse's office, shooting a cold glare at Alice as they passed the doorway. It wasn't until she was alone that Alice could give so much protest as a meek, "... But I didn't do anything..."

Eve just performed a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, a ploy in which the schemer pretends to be a victim in order to garner sympathy for themselves and/or foster animosity towards the alleged aggressor. WGGs can be as mild as implications of verbal abuse, or as extreme as framing someone else for one's suicide, at which point this trope becomes Suicide Not Murder.

The Trope Namer is Peach Girl: At one point, The Libby's explanation of how this trope works includes the line "What would you assume if you saw a wounded gazelle next to a lion?" (Note that in Real Life, prey species will feign being injured to lure a predator away from their young.)

Almost every mystery series has at least a few episodes where the culprit turns out to be one of the victims. Also a common ploy of the Femme Fatale and The Vamp in Film Noir stories.

A form of Malicious Slander. Can also be a Lame Excuse. When it's done against policemen (and women) to avoid prosecution, it's a Police Brutality Gambit. See also Loser Gets The Girl.

Can be a form of Poor Communication Kills on the part of the (actual) victim; if This Troper witnessed the ordeal described above, he would berate Alice for not speaking up while Bob was still in the room, and, if that did work, for not following them and continuing to decry what a scheming bitch Eve is. In fact he just might set the record straight with Bob himself, on principle.

Compare Why Did You Make Me Hit You, Arrested For Heroism. Listed as #34 of The Thirty Six Stratagems.

Rule #34?

Examples

Anime and Manga

As indicated by the page quote, Sae from Peach Girl is a master of this. Most of the conflict in the first arc is driven by Sae convincing people that Momo is bullying her.
Used in at least two episodes of Case Closed (Detective Conan). One where the killer turns out to be the deceased, and another where the killer stabs himself to allay suspicion. Suspects will sometimes attempt this to ally suspicion from themselves, but of course Conan sees through them all; one victim was injured because she was trying to pull one of these on her fiancee to be.
- In at least two other cases the killers planted evidence against themselves in such a way as to make it look like they were being framed.
In Basara an overthrown dictator, whom the cast never actually met in person pretends to have been a sex slave at his own court. Most of the good cast believe his tearjerker story but the heroine doesn't trust him. She lets him tag along anyway though he doesn't even pretend to be nice.
Ranma ½: Ukyo used this in Ukyo's Secret Sauce but with a twist. She implicates her Love Interest Ranma as the one who has injured her (by cheating on her with Akane, since Ranma spent the night in Akane's room). Since Ranma was already feeling guilty about wrecking her special sauce (and letting her think it was her failure) he falls for it pretty badly. Afterwards Ukyo comments to herself: "Wow, tears really do work."
- Ranma himself has done this a few times. Most prominently in Team Ranma vs. The Legendary Phoenix, where he attempts to use it (as "the pigtailed girl") to trick Kuno into getting rid of a bird that is constantly attacking Ranma and which Ranma can't hurt, due to its paralytic gaze.
In the first Martial Arts tournament in Dragon Ball, Ranfan's entire strategy revolves around screaming when her opponent is about to hit her and striking while their guard is down. Well, that and stripping.
- Piccolo in his fight against Goku, faking having been defeated only to Shoop Da Whoop a careless Goku through his chest.
Bakura when he teamed up with Marik to trick Yugi's grampa in Yu-Gi-Oh.
- Marik too. He called himself Namu, his brother called himself Marik, and Bakura's crazy half pretended to be the not crazy half of his split personality.
Bleach: During the Soul Society arc, Captain Aizen fakes his own murder as part of his plot. He leaves behind information suggesting he was killed for discovering a conspiracy, changing most but not all of the facts so that the good guys fight amongst themselves and remove a major obstacle for him.
Subverted: "Princess" Ayanakoji in Ouran High School Host Club tries this against Haruhi Fujioka, but none of the members of the titular Host Club actually believe her for a moment, so all it accomplishes is to get her doused with cold water and permanently banned from the Host Club.
In Mai-HiME the There Can Be Only One plot picks up speed after Sister Yukariko (being influenced by her lover, Ishigami-sensei) pretends to be attacked by the morally ambigious Dark Magical Girl Nao, so when the others attack Nao and injure her, she becomes really mad and turns into an enemy.
Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden uses this to try and convince the others that Hinaichigo is bullying her. It spirals into a conflict that wrecks the Sakurada household.
In Real Bout High School, wannabe ninja Asuka Kuronari pulls this during her fight with real ninja Kyoichi Kunugi. She pulls down her mask and cries her eyes out while telling him her life story, why she thought she could be a ninja if she tried hard enough, and asks him to look at something: a smoke bomb, which she immediately deploys, giving her cohort Xiaoxing the chance to attack him.
- While the tactic fails to defeat him, he is so impressed by her deviousness (contrary to what Naruto may claim, this is a good trait in a ninja) that he leaves the battle and declares that she may be a real ninja after all.
Subverted in Kare Kano. Clingy Jealous Girl and Unlucky Childhood Friend Tsubasa tries to use this technique against female lead Yukino since she's dating her beloved Arima, but Arima himself knows better and actually catches her trying to kick Yukino on the head while she thinks he's not looking.
Inverted in Tokyo Godfathers when Hana shouts at a group of people to draw them closer together by making himself the villain. He even explains it with a reference to a Red Oni Blue Oni story right afterwards.
A specially nasty example happens in the manga of Ikki Tousen. Kaku and Enjutsu (the latter out of revenge) lure Teifu out by sending him a video where she's disguised as Teifu's crush Ryoumou and, with the help of other people, fakes a kidnapping and rape attempt. The consequences lead to the first time that Ryuubi's Superpowered Evil Side awakens.
A double-team version happens in Mamotte Shugogetten, where Izumi pretends to be sick to get Shao Lin's attention, while Ruu An uses the separation to try and win Tasuke's heart. Ultimately fails when Ruu An, surprised by Tasuke's honest concern for what the Chivalrous Pervert might do to Shao, allows him to go "save" her. Of course, when he gets to the nurse's office, we learn that Shao used her magical servants to keep Izumi in bed, never once realizing his intentions.
Rika from the manga Devil Beside You does this to protagonist Kayano in order to get attention from Takeru and have him break up with Kayano. Being the Jerkass Stu he is, it works magnificently.
In Ashita No Nadja, Nadja dolls up to attend a high-class party where she can get answers about her stolen Orphans Plot Trinket and see who has been impersonating her. Soon, she meets up with one of the culprits... and it's her old friend Rosemary. What does said culprit do? Though she's willingly in the whole complot, Rosemary tearfully tells Nadja that she's a mere pawn, kidnapped and blackmailed by the Smug Snake to pose as Nadja. It works so well that Rosemary returns the brooch... but sends Nadja into an Heroic BSOD by revealing the truth behind her involvement, ripping Nadja's Gorgeous Period Dress into pieces and kicking her out of the mansion.
Nami invokes this early in One Piece, pretending to succumb to her injuries so Luffy will go into an Unstoppable Rage and take out Captain Kuro. As soon as he's no longer paying attention, she gets back up and loots Kuro's ship.
Played for laughs in Yu-Gi-Oh GX, where the effect of Blair/Rei's "Maiden In Love" card is to make puppy eyes at the male monsters of her opponent and turn them against each other since they can't bring themselves to attack her.
In Sumomo Mo Momo Mo, Kinu pulls one to try to turn everyone against Momoko.

Comic Books

This was how Ava manipulated Dwight into murdering her husband in the Sin City story "A Dame to Kill For."
The Wuzzles: In Walt Disney Comics no. 512 (hey, it's a power of two!), Croc gains sympathy from Butterbear by pulling up a board and pretending to have been injured. It works on her account, although Bumblelion overhears his plan and makes sure his stay is not a pleasant one. His plot? Well, his roof leaks and he was seeking shelter from a fruit salad storm. That's right, a fruit salad storm. Unconventional weather the land of Wuzz has, no?
Jennifer. In both the comic book and the Masters of Horror television adaptation, she takes this trope to a horrifying extreme. Suffice to say her hideous appearance is the least disturbing thing about her.
A 40's Batman features a short one: A low-level crook fires a bullet through his own hat (which he's holding in his hand), while yelling "DROP IT, WAYNE!!" He proceeds to put the hat back on and tosses the gun to Bruce Wayne, who catches it. The police barge in and see Bruce Wayne with a smoking gun in his hand, and a hole in a bystander's hat.
This trope forms the backbone of the DC Comics miniseries Identity Crisis. When Elongated Man's wife Sue is murdered, it looks like an isolated incident; until Jean Loring, ex-wife of The Atom, is nearly killed as well. It seems someone is murdering the spouses of superheroes, and the hero community comes together to try to figure out which supervillain might be behind it. Except, of course, that it's not a supervillain; it's Jean, who staged her own attempted murder to both throw suspicion off herself, and to send the heroes on a wild goose chase by making Sue's murder look like part of a larger series of killings. And, in keeping with the scenario at the top of the page, it turns out she did it all to get a man's attention.
This is used in Curtis, when the titular character's younger brother constantly runs to their mother, crying and begging for protection from his mean old big brother. The mother always falls for it and leaves Curtis with a lot of chores to do while the little brother thumbs his nose and laughs.

Film

Linda Fiorentino's character in The Last Seduction.
Hans Gruber when he first meets John McClane.
Edward Norton's character in Primal Fear, as revealed in the final twist.
Beating yourself up in the boss's office while screaming for mercy works wonders in Fight Club. "I am Jack's smirking revenge" indeed!
- A similar thing happens in The Class of 1984. A student is caught doing something wrong in the boys' bathroom. Instead of taking his punishment, he beats himself up by doing things, like banging his head into the paper towel dispenser. When security arrives, they think the teacher is trying to beat up the student.
The end of the villain's plot in Scream.
Palpatine pulls this off in Star Wars when he pretends his ugly deformities are the result of a Jedi's attack.
- They were a really indirect result of the Jedi attack. Better reasons could include the fact that he's evil, that he used a bunch of his stamina shooting lightning, revealing that evil, and that he's 8 gazillion years old.
- He also pulls it off in Episode III, when he convinces Anakin to save him from Mace Windu.
  - Uh... these two things happened in the SAME EPISODE. And I believe it was a direct result of Mace Windu using his lightsaber to redirect the force lightning back to its source, damaging and deforming Palpatine instead of damaging Mace. It's freaking Force Lightning, who knows how it's supposed to work?
  - Not sure how official this is, but it's said he used his own life force instead of THE Force as fuel, that's why he turned ugly.
Disney's Lady and the Tramp. The two Siamese cats do a lot of damage to the Darlings' house, and arrange for Lady to get caught in some drapes so that it looks like she did it. Afterward, they lie down on the ground and roll around piteously meowing, with (self-inflicted) scratches on them, to make it look like Lady attacked them as part of her rampage.
Also from Disney, Cinderella included a scene where Cindy lectures Bruno on getting along with Lucifer. While her back is turned, Lucifer lies down in front of Bruno and scratches his snout, yowling when when he growls.
The antagonist for Mean Girls writes evil things about herself into her book of gossip, then distributes it to frame the Protagonist.
- This is also used in the very similar comic Queen Bee, when the protagonist's rival garners sympathy for herself by using her telekinetic powers to hit herself in the head with a lunch tray and blame the protagonist.
Megatron pulled this in Transformers: The Movie; He pleaded for mercy when Optimus had him cornered while reaching for a gun Optimus couldn't see.
The bad guy in Dirty Harry pays someone to beat the ever-loving snot out of him, just so he can accuse the hero of tuning him up.
In The King and the Clown, two other wives of the former king are portrayed as using this tactic against the current king's mother in a dramatic "reenactment" of the events surrounding her poisoning. The king takes it very seriously. The two women in question happen to be attending the performance. The results aren't pretty.
Judge Dredd. After having Rico slaughter the other high ranking Judges, Chief Justice Griffin shoots himself in the arm to make it appear he was also a target of the attack.
Rhoda in The Bad Seed manages this while unconscious, as it is assumed her near-lethal poisoning was due to her mother being crazy rather than her being a complete psychopath.
In Catwoman, our heroine confronts the villainess in her home, who reveals her husband's dead body which just so happens to be covered in deep scratches, right before she triggers an alarm and cues crocodile tears, screaming "IT WAS CATWOMAN!"
The entire Xanatos Gambit (... Roulette?) of Wild Things began when Denise Richards' character accuses Matt Dillon's character of rape.
The confrontation between Commander Richter and the Camerlengo in Angels And Demons, where the Camerlengo brands himself with the Illuminati symbol, then tells the would-be Big Damn Heroes that the attacker is the other guy.
Humperdinck's plot to kill The Princess Bride is an attempt to pull off this trope as part of a Xanatos Gambit to justify the conquest of a kingdom.
A strange example from Memento: Leonard goes after Dodd because he beat up Natalie. At least, that's what she says — in reality, it was Leonard who beat up Natalie (who deliberately provoked him by saying some very nasty things about his late wife), only he's forgotten. Of course, by the time he meets up with Dodd he's forgotten why he's there...
In Beethoven, veterinarian Herman Varnick, does this because he wants to use Beethoven for an ammunition test. Varnick comes to the Newton's home and stages an "attack" by Beethoven on him, by putting ketchup on his arm to look like blood, and says that Beethoven bit his arm. Varnick says Beethoven must be euthanized or he will press charges, so George takes Beethoven to Varnick to be euthanized. Later the Newtons discover the lie when Varnick's bandages are ripped off, revealing the absence of bite marks.

Literature

In King Lear Edmund wounds himself and frames Edgar. This makes it Older Than Steam
Agatha Christie's A Murder Is Announced. The book is rife with deception, the most important one being that Miss Blacklock, who had ostensibly been the victim of attempted murder, was in fact the mastermind behind the attack.
Harry Potter
- In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, it was revealed that Peter Pettigrew faked his death and framed Sirius Black for it.
- In the same book, Draco Malfoy used his (healed) injury from a hippogriff to get special treatment, eventually leading up to his dad using political leverage to order the hippogriff's execution.
There's a Kafka story about this.
One of Tom Holt's near-interchangeable protagonists (Paul Carpenter, IIRC) at one point remembers how, when left to play with a young cousin, the little rodent would at the first hint of boredom burst into tears and run out crying "Mummy, he hit me!" Since most of Tom Holt's protagonists are Butt Monkeys and/or Chew Toys, this is pretty much standard.
The entire point of Ann Coulter writing Guilty is to allege that the American Far Left has been pulling this on its right-wing opponents for several decades, with the Right being too dumbfounded by some of the allegations to intelligibly fight back.
- But this book is doing that for the right-wing people. It makes the right-wing look like the victims of "false victims". But this is a "chicken and egg" situation, so don't bother deciding who is lion and who is gazelle.
In the Warhammer 40000: Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, Inquisitor Stele accuses the astropath Horin of trying to kill him and uses psyker magic to strengthen his case. The Space Marines he deludes promptly shoot the astropath apart.
In Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force, thirteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi's rival Bruck Chun does this in an attempt to discredit Obi-Wan and prevent him from becomng a Jedi. It almost works, too.

Live Action TV

On CSI Miami, a suspect dislocates his own shoulder in order to accuse Horatio of police brutality; eventually the evidence proves that the injuries were indeed self-inflicted.
- A suspect tries the same thing by head-desk on CSI. Someone just points out that they can prove it was self-inflicted. Suspect sulks and asks for an aspirin.
Law And Order Special Victims Unit gives a Nightmare Fuel spin to it. A woman going through an horrible divorce, had sex with her divorce lawyer and then falsely accused her husband of raping and beating her, getting everyone's sympathies and effectively ruining her ex-husband's reputation. The ex-husband, who until then was a more or less normal guy, snaps so violently at the fake accusation that he sets his abusive and bitchy evil ex-wife on fire, killing her.
- It gets worse. Even on her deathbed, confronted by Olivia with the truth, she still' accuses her ex-husband of a crime he didn't commit, effectively ruining the lives of herself, the husband, and most tragically, their daughter. All so she could win a divorce settlement. If that's not a strong argument for Humans Are Bastards, I don't know what is.
A case on Monk has a small-time hood beat himself up, then meet with a detective under the guise of turning state's evidence in order to accuse him of brutality, thus discrediting his testimony against an old friend awaiting trial. What he wasn't told was, the mastermind behind this little plot had an extra surprise in store; another accomplice stabbed him, so it'd look like the detective was a murderer.
Used in a Little Britain sketch where Andy is jealous of Lou paying more attention to his new girlfriend than to Andy. They are in a pub and when Lou goes to the bar, Andy climbs out of his wheelchair and sprawls on the floor. As the girl stares in shock (because she didn't know he can walk) Lou returns and Andy shouts "She pushed me!"
There's an episode of This Is Wonderland where Eliot has to defend a man accused of rape. It turns out that "victim" is pulling one of these, as she keeps changing her story, which is credibility-stretching enough by the start.
In Dexter, Lila has rough sex with Angel Batista and then takes a date rape drug to accuse him of rape. Earlier in the season, she torched her apartment to get sympathy from Dexter.
- In the same season, Dexter himself uses this tactic by headbutting Doakes and walking out of a conversation held in private, successfully provoking Doakes into attacking him in front of everyone else, which leads to Doakes' suspension from the police department and definitely makes Dexter out to be an innocent victim of Doakes' animosity:
Dexter: I own you. BAM!
In Rebelde Way the entire character of Javier Alanis was built to be a Xanatos Speed Chess match where his only move was this gambit.
Burn Notice talks about a variant of this, calling it "Double Blackmail," where the blackmailer will make it look like they are being blackmailed as well, so that the mark is more trusting. It is referred to as being "Older than the Pyramids".
Highlander (the TV version) mixed this with a classic Batman Gambit: Suspected in a series of beheadings committed by another Immortal, MacLeod comes to this Immortal... unarmed, followed by police, and pretending not to know what the other Immortal is talking about. When the other immortal takes his sword out, the police move in. The Enemy Of The Week gets away, but MacLeod is cleared anyway.
Bev Harris seems to pull one in a later episode of Roseanne; while she and David are discussing wedding plans and he shoots her ideas down she seems genuinely crushed, but when Darlene comes in to comfort her she claims "we were talking so nicely and all of a sudden he just attacked me!. Keep in mind this is David we're talking about here.
Battlestar Galactica. Baltar's lawyer Romo Lampkin is nearly killed by a bomb blast in "The Son Also Rises"; thus in the following episode we see him limping around with the aid of a cane during Baltar's trial. After the trial is over, Romo leaves the cane with Lee and walks off normally.
On an episode of The Inside Rebecca cornered an Enfant Terrible in her tree house and was questioning/intimidating her about the murder she had committed. When the little girl’s mother called for her she fell backwards out of the tree house breaking her arm and she claimed the FBI agent pushed her. No one in the agency blamed her but Melidy did seem impressed that Rebbeca had pulled her gun on a 10 year old.
In Quantum Leap Sam discovers that the wife of his 'brother' is another leaper. Carried away by the moment of finding a fellow leaper, when the brother/husband comes home unexpectedly they need to pretend that nothing was happening. Instead she horrifically scratches her face to claim 'Sam' attacked her.
On Guiding Light: Driven mad by husband Josh leaving her for his ex wife Reva and further distraught over miscarrying their baby (she'd gotten pregnant in a last ditch attempt to hang onto him) Annie kept the dead baby in her womb, lured Reva to the top of a staircase, and in full view of dozens of party guests, provoked Reva into an argument that culminated in it appearing as though Reva had pushed Annie down a flight of stairs, when in fact, Annie had thrown herself. When Annie supposedly miscarried after this, Reva was charged with manslaughter.

Newspaper Comics

Barry, the scrappy little brother in Curtis, shows how it's done here.

Professional Wrestling

This even happens in Professional Wrestling, of all places. A favorite tactic of the late Eddie Guerrero would be, when the Easily Distracted Referee's back was turned, slam a chair on the ground, throw it to his opponent, and then lay down like he'd just taken a chair shot. Ref turns around, sees the "carnage", and DQ's the opponent. And this was while he was a Face, mind you.
- In fact, this is exactly what he did (to Mr. Kennedy) in his last match before he died (may he rest in peace).
- Though Eddie Guerrero employed this trope regularly, he wasn't the first (though he may have been the first good guy). In the early 1990s, Michael Hayes was wrestling Rick Steiner in World Championship Wrestling. The referee was distracted; Hayes's partner, Jimmy Garvin—lurking at ringside—threw Steiner a length of two-by-four. Hayes dropped to the mat, holding his head and writhing in pain. The ref turned to see Steiner standing over him with the board and promptly disqualified him. This was particularly effective because Rick Steiner's persona was that of a loveable doofus with very little going on upstairs; thus it was perfectly in character for him to not only catch the board, but stand there holding it with a confused look on his face.

Web Comics

Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki has Loki (yes, THAT L o k i), who, acting under orders from Surt and/or as a Stealth Mentor, convinces his son that Yuuki forced him to stab himself. Sleipnir who had completely forgotten he was there to fight Yuuki is easily convinced, since then it was personal. So Yeah...

Western Animation

In the most recent Wallace And Gromit film, A Matter Of Loaf And Death, the murderer deceives Wallace into thinking Gromit has attacked them, even going so far as to bite their own arm to provide an injury.
A subplot in the Family Guy episode "Love Thy Trophy" concerns Meg, working as a waitress in a diner, lying about being a teenage single mother and her "son" being addicted to crack so she would get hefty tips from pitying customers.
- Not too far off as we're not sure what is in those pancakes Stewie scarfs down.
  - Blueberries?
  - I do about the same as Stewie does for regular pancakes, so... Make of it what you will.

Video Games

The Pokemon Mawile's gimmick revolves around this. Its "Fake Tears" ability lulls its foes into a sense of complacency with its adorable face, leaving the foe wide open for a bite from its big steel jaws.
- Which is odd, seeing how Fake Tears lowers Special Defense by two levels, yet all bite attacks are mitigated by normal Defense.
- Not in the generation it was introduced. Bite/Crunch are Dark, which ran exclusively off Special Attack. The elemental attack type split wasn't until the next generation.
- Not to mention Vulpix as well, which is directly stated in the Pokédex to feign injury as escape from a strong foe.
Bad Girl, the Rank 2 assassin in No More Heroes, will sometimes drop to her knees and cry. Fall for it and you're dead. However, due to her severe emotional disturbance, sometimes she really is crying - if one hand's on the bat, she's faking it, but if they're both on her face she's wide open.
- The Witch from Left 4 Dead works identically. Her crying can be heard long before you even come across her. However, the characters already know to stay away from her (and will warn the others when they hear one) and it's even one of the tips you can get on the loading acreen.

Real Life

Truth In Television: One of the researchers who worked with Koko, the signing gorilla, described in a book a prank he would play on his fellow scientists. He would run up to Koko, pretend to cry, and tell Koko in sign language that the other researcher had hit him. Koko would chase the offender threateningly until they showed contrition. Though, if he tried to target anyone that Koko was particularly fond of, she would assume foul play and chase the accuser instead!
Ashley Todd, a volunteer for the McCain/Palin campaign in 2008, claimed that she went to an withdraw money from an ATM when a Scary Black Man mugged her and, upon seeing her McCain bumper sticker, carved a "B" into her face. She declined medical attention for her injuries, but quickly notified the media about her politically-motivated victimization. She got sympathy calls from McCain and Palin and the story made the rounds for about a day before she was brought in for questioning and cracked under pressure, revealing she fabricated the entire thing and inflicted the injuries herself. Notably, the "B" she carved into her own face was backwards, as though done in a mirror...
- See also the Tawana Brawley case, the Morton Downey, Jr. "skinhead attack", and Crystal Gail Magnum of the Duke Lacrosse alleged rape case.
Scottsboro Boys
Kate Howard in the Springfield Race Riot of 1908
Miriam Kashani rape hoax.
Susan Smith
- The rare male example, Charles Stuart, Jesse Anderson, Robert Harris.
In some ways, Lady Diana Spencer. After the break-up of her marriage to Prince Charles, she gave a series of interviews in which she tearfully described her unhappy life as his wife, essentially blaming the entire thing on him — this despite the fact that she was just as adulterous as he was (if not more so; whereas Charles seemingly had only one mistress whom he later married (after she unloaded her husband, to whom she'd been married before her affair with Chuck started), she had plenty of other lovers, and one of them was speculated to be the real father of Prince Harry. This helped very much frame Diana in the better light, making Charles the bad guy in the situation. It helps that she was an attractive blonde and he very much isn't (blonde or, let's face it, attractive). Of course, Diana was in a genuinely difficult and unhappy situation, but she was NOT entirely the wounded innocent she made herself out to be.
- "Not entirely" might be an understatement. She could be unpleasant bordering on abusive, especially to those who weren't in a position to make her look good to the public (such as members of the media and representatives of charities). It has been suggested that she suffered from borderline personality disorder - "I hate you, but don't leave me!". The above mentioned interview in fact quite upset at least William in how slanted the whole thing was.
- Everything written here ignores the fact that Charles really didn't want to marry her, he wanted to marry Camilla Parker Bowles but couldn't. So no wonder Diana feels the victim, she married a man who was in love with someone else from the start. "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." It was wrong of him to marry her in the first place, but there was enormous pressure on him.
Definitive and very sad Truth In Television: Family Law cases often involve fake abuse accusations, e.g. wives accuse husbands of physical/sexual abuse to keep them from seeing the kids and/or extort more alimony, husbands and grandparents accuse wives of neglecting their kids to get full custody, siblings accuse each other of abusing/neglecting elderly parents to get more inheritance money/benefits, men accuse women of withholding sex during the marriage to cut down on spousal support (or to make themselves out as a victim), etc.
- This Troper personally knows three men who have been accused of sexual abuse to keep them from seeing their children. She is skeptical the other situations are nearly as common.
A considerably milder example would be the younger sibling that howls in pain and acts as though you've hit him in order to get his way/get you in serious trouble.
- Comedian John Heffron has a joke about this; whatever he was doing to annoy his brother would lead his brother to yell out "I can't breathe!", leading to Heffron being grounded.
  - And I've got some advice about this: try actually hitting the little bastard next time he does it. Best case, he'll stop; worst case, you'll at least deserve the punishment you're about to get.
  - But what if the little bastard is actually a little bitch? Freaking younger sisters, man...
  - Then show her you're not sexist; hit the little bitch, too.
  - That's easily the most disturbing comment I've seen on this site
Lyndon Johnson, as a master reader of men, could be the king of this trope when it suited his purposes. As a lad, when he found himself in a physical confrontation he would immediately fall down and start kicking and crying. This behavior continued into his adulthood. After he had a massive heart attack on June 18, 1955, he used the "I'm a sick man, I don't have long to live, pity me" ploy on many of his Senate colleagues and it got results.
See the long, sordid, and downright bizarre Ms. Scribe Story for a Sock Puppet laden example from the Harry Potter fandom.
One word: Soccer.
- It's not just soccer. NBA fans love to discuss who the best floppers are. Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs gets a lot of hatedom for his proficiency at this.
- Former Lakers (among other teams) center Vlade Divac was considered the master of flopping (which, for the uninitiated, is overreacting to physical contact in an attempt to force a foul).
- Several hockey players, including Sidney Crosby, Teemu Selanne, Alexander Ovechkin, and others have been accused of diving to draw penalties.
- Just pick a sport where tripping someone over incurs a foul.
- In soccer, if the referee concludes that this trope has been invoked, he/she is authorized to punish the one who pulled it. This Troper has seen a ref give a red card to a player who took a dive inside the goal zone, where the foul would have resulted in a penalty kick.
It's heavily speculated that this story abotu a supposed attack from a Twilight rabid fan never really existed and was just a WGG from a rabid Twilight hater trying to get the book banned. Not only there are no medical or police reports around, the story itself has many inaccouracies.
- Let's be honest; it's highly unlikely ANY of the attacks "recorded" against haters/fans are true. Both sides are full of drama queens.
  - Perhaps some of the more psycpathic ones, but This Troper knows of quite a few incidents involving fans of a particular book series.
  - This other troper knows of some incidents involving anti fans attacking fans. One verbally abused a Mormon friend's little sister and made her cry just because SMeyer is a Mormon.
Some people believe that the infamous attempt on Taiwanese ex-President Chen Shui-bian's life in 2004 was actually a Woudned Gazelle Gambit from him to get sympathy from the voters. Either way, don't ask.
- Same goes to the recent attack on Silvio Berlusconi.
This Troper is right now staring at the TV. What's the big news in this moment? The supposed kidnapping and sexual abuse of two schoolgirls turned out to be an invention of two whiny Lonely Rich Kids who wanted their parents's attention at any costs.
After a guy accidentally hit a girl with a basketball, she rounded up 11 guys and had them beat him up. The injuries were so bad he'll need reconstructive surgery to correct the broken bones and might even lose sight in one eye.
Admiral James Stockdale - when he was a prisoner of war in The Hanoi Hilton, Stockdale was told he would be paraded in public for propaganda purposes. To keep this from happening, he split his own scalp open with a razor, then beat his own face to the point where he was unrecognizable.
Peisistratus of Athens was hated by the people he ruled. To gain support, in a combination of this and invoking the Vetinari Paradox, one fine day he rode into town on a lone chariot, seemingly beaten and bloody all over, claiming his enemies were out to get him. The people realised that although they hated him, they couldn't bear to lose his leadership, and he ended up with a force of body guards at his disposal, which he used to enforce his rule.
A girl at this troper's high school once put the entire school on lockdown when she came running out bloody and clawed up and screaming that her boyfriend from a different township had showed up and attacked her. It turned out that she injured herself, tore her own clothes, and made everything up.