Basic Trope: A character feigns illness in order to scare someone off.
- Straight: Newsman Pete fakes a highly contagious disease in order to scare away a guard.
- Exaggerated: Newsman Pete scares away an entire army by faking the common cold.
- Downplayed: Newsman Pete actually has a disease, but deliberately plays up the symptoms to put the guard on edge.
- Justified: There has been an epidemic recently and Pete is able to perfectly fake some of the symptoms.
- Inverted:
- Newsman Pete scares away a sick person by being healthy.
- Newsman Pete pretends that the guard is sick as part of a head game.
- Newsman Pete pretends he's sick to lure the guard into checking on him so he can get close enough to swipe his keys.
- Subverted:
- Newsman Pete starts clutching his stomach as if he's about to fake a disease, but when the guard calls him on it, Pete punches him out.
- Newsman Pete turns out to actually be sick, and collapses.
- Double Subverted:
- After which he blames that attack on his highly contagious disease.
- But it's only a cold, and he's actually faking a more serious disease.
- Parodied: Pete starts listing ailments for the disease that he obviously doesn't have (multicolored hair, missing limbs, etc.) and the guard still falls for it.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Newsman Pete does not fake a disease.
- Enforced: "Have him act sick. That'll be funny."
- Lampshaded: "I can't believe he fell for that."
- Invoked: Pete decides to paint fake boils all over his arms and chest in case he has to scare away some guards.
- Exploited: The guards use Pete's “disease” as an excuse to have him quarantined, preventing him from carrying out his mission.
- Defied:
- Pete considers using the fake illness excuse, but decides that it's quicker to just knock out the guard himself.
- The guard tells Pete that he has no rights, and he doesn't care if he dies horribly from sickness so long as he does it in his cell. A put-out Pete stops faking sickness and pouts.
- Discussed: "A guard's coming. Maybe we can pretend to be sick like in that one movie."
- Conversed: "These Newsman Pete novels keep getting more sketchy. That tactic wouldn't work in real life."
- Deconstructed: Newsman Pete fakes a highly contagious disease. The guard immediately declares a quarantine and seals off the area, trapping Pete until medical staff arrive to run tests on him that will expose his lie.
(cough) Get (wheeze) away...(hacking cough) You Don't Want to Catch This.
