History Main / SubvertedSuspicionAesop

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Used in ''The Egg-Pire Strikes Back,'' when the Yolkians come back and make peace with the people of Retroville. It's a bit different because the Yolkians were the main antagonists of the movie that started the whole series, and both viewers and Jimmy know that they are '''definitely''' up to no good- but everyone else tells Jimmy not to be so suspicious. When Jimmy is proven right at the very end, Jimmy makes them say "You were right and we were wrong" several times. Including in French and Chinese. (Although they fail at one of these)

** While this is a pretty typical Sideshow Bob plot, it's notably {{Averted}} in "Brother From Another Series": a suspicious Bart finally gets Lisa on his side when the two dig up evidence of an embezzlement Bob appears to be committing which will endanger the town, only to discover that Bob knows nothing and that [[spoiler:his employer and brother]] is working to frame him.

* Not surprising, seen in WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons.

-->'''Becky''': Hey, no biggie. I ''was'' trying to steal your family. I even thought of a good place to bury you. Then I didn't have a shovel, so I went to the hardware store and they have six different kinds, and I was like, "later".

-->'''Marge''': Well, he fooled almost everyone, but there was one little boy who never lost his mistrust.

* ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' did a version of this PlayedForLaughs. Harry and Tommy thought that a group of "badasses" hanging out at the bar were up to no good even though were doing absolutely nothing suspicious. At the end, after it turned out the "badasses" wanted to rob the bar, Harry and Tommy summarized the SpoofAesop ("From now on, I look at people and make snap judgments." and noting that "don't judge a book by its cover" makes no sense "thats what the cover is ''there'' for! it tells you what is inside the book")

* In the same vein as the above, ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' had a new neighbor move onto the lane with his sickly sister. After he helps Lynette out with an issue her son was having, she goes to his house with a cake in thanks. While there, she discovers a wall of photos of shirtless young boys. He explains that he's a swim coach, but she still has her suspicions. Since this followed her being held hostage, it's suggested that she's merely suffering PTSD or something similar, but she's already told the local gossips. Eventually, things escalate to Wisteria Lane's residents protesting outside his house. The stress causes his sister to go into cardiac arrest and she dies. Lynette goes to him to apologize and finds that he's moving. Before leaving, he implies that his sister was what was keeping him from actually doing anything with the boys. However, there is some ambiguity in his statements, hinting that he may only be saying this to get back at Lynette for how her actions led to his sister's death.

** In "The Succubus" the boys are convinced chef's girlfriend is a succubus from hell. Eventually, they confront her on this and she tells them how silly that sounds and gently suggests they're just worried that chef won't have time for them after they're married. They at first listen to this, but [[VillainBall the minute they start to let their guards down]], she gives them a NightmareFace.

** [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E5GriffonTheBrushOff "Griffon the Brush-Off"]]: After having a bad experience with the griffon Gilda, Pinkie Pie comes to believe she's one of the most mean people in the universe. [[{{Jerkass}} She's in the ballpark, at any rate.]] Later subverted by "The Lost Treasure of Griffinstone" where it's revealed Gilda has a nasty temper, but is ultimately a good person at heart who just doesn't fully understand how friendship works. It ends with her making up with Rainbow Dash ''and'' befriending Pinkie Pie.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Webcomic/EveryoneIsHome'', a ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' parody comic, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Cloud]] is treated by the rest of the roster as wrong for refusing to trust Sephiroth even after his ([[ItMakesSenseInContext head trauma-induced]]) HeelFaceTurn. [[CassandraTruth He's right]]. As soon as Cloud finally relents and gives Sephiroth a chance, [[FalselyReformedVillain he stabs everyone in the back]] by ''poisoning them'' at a dinner party.

** In ''Steven Universe Future,'' the fusion Bluebird (composed of former enemies Aquamarine and Eyeball Ruby) comes to Little Homeworld and claims to want to experience life on earth. ''Everyone'' recognizes her components easily enough, but they also point out that ''everyone else'' has been given a chance to reform and most of those people have taken it. Steven is alone in remaining suspicious of her, but every time it seems she's doing something wrong (holding a butcher knife behind Pearl's back), there's a perfectly logical reason for it (to cut the friendship cake!). Even more infuriatingly, Bluebird's tone (inherited from Aquamarine) makes it impossible to tell whether she's being sincere or sarcastic. It gets to the point where Steven sees Bluebird holding Greg aloft by his hair after crashing the van into the house and has to ask whether Greg's screams for help are "screams of fun," because he can no longer trust his own instincts on the matter. But nope. Bluebird has finally revealed her true colors and unfuses to monologue about gaining her revenge.

* ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'': While working undercover at a bakery in the mall, Gru sees the owner of the mall's Mexican restaurant and recognizes him as Eduardo Perez, a.k.a. El Macho, a former supervillain like himself. Gru becomes convinced that El Macho hasn't actually changed his ways, especially once one of his foster daughters falls for Eduardo's son (though that has more to do with Gru being an overprotective father than anything else). Gru gets his spy partner to help him infiltrate the restaurant, sure that El Macho's evil plan is being stored in the back vault -- only it's just a jar of salsa, and El Macho ultimately proves to be, like Gru, a genuinely nice former villain whose only flaws are romancing other men's wives (and just playfully, of course) and owning a dangerous and very mean chicken as a pet. [[spoiler:Except... it's all a ruse, as El Macho has a ''second'', much larger restaurant by the seashore, and this one ''does'' have a hidden lair where El Macho ''is'' hatching a scheme for world domination (which Gru's allies never could have uncovered without Gru's help, since they were sure they'd caught the actual culprit earlier).]]

* ''Cops And Robbersons'': A running gag is cop-wannabe Chase getting bad service at a diner. Eventually he snaps and violently arrests the somewhat slovenly fellow (who never got his order right) and calls in the police(!). As veteran cop Palance apologizes profusely to the man, Chase stews in the back of Palance's car. On a whim, he puts the man's name into the computer on the dashboard. The result: [[spoiler:countless warrants for grand theft auto. A smug Chase shows a printout to Palance, who arrests the career car thief. In Palance's words: "You got lucky."]]

* This is the entire plot of ''Film/AllAboutEve''. [[spoiler:At the beginning of the movie, Eve befriends Margot Channing, who starts out feeling sorry for her, but begins to suspect her of having ulterior motives. Margot's behaviour towards Eve becomes increasingly obnoxious -- something all her friends call her out on. The audience is led to sympathise with Eve until two-thirds of the way through the movie, when it's revealed that she's even more manipulative than Margot suspected.]]

** In [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince the sixth book]],[[spoiler: Harry was right, Draco had replaced his father as a Death Eater and was responsible for the attempts on Dumbledore's life.]] Of course, it works a little better in that case, because [[spoiler: Harry had previously suspected Malfoy was behind the attacks on Muggle-borns in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets their second year]]]], and it wasn't him.
** And then double-subverted in the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows seventh]] HP book. Similar to [[spoiler: Draco, Harry had harboured a dislike and suspicion of Snape through the entire series, which, just like Draco above, was wrong every time until it seemed to be finally confirmed at the end of book 6. And then book 7 comes around and it turns out Snape really was Dumbledore's deep cover agent, though a NominalHero at best.]]
* Inverted and then double subverted in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'': When a crime is committed, all sorts of excessively obvious clues point to the Klatchians, which Vimes interprets as his own countrymen attempting to frame them. [[spoiler: It then turns out that a Klatchian did do it, covering his real tracks and leaving obvious fake ones just to fool Vimes, who turns out not to have needed any such convincing since he had already decided it was a frame by his own countrymen (and refused to suspect the Klatchians) before having seen any clues at all]].
* Kahlan of the Literature/SwordOfTruth definitely suspects [[spoiler: Drefan Rahl]], but after rationalizing it, manages to even convince herself that said person was a good guy. Oops.
** That's actually the second time she manages to fall into that trap [[spoiler:with one of Richard's brothers]].
* The Zilpha Keatley Snyder book ''Secret Weapons'' has a kid who's watched too many movies think the men messing around at the home of their neighbors who are on vacation must be terrorists and convinces the other kids to help spy on them. It turns out that they weren't terrorists, but they ''were'' criminals. (Needless to say, the book was written before 9/11 and comes off as much darker today than the author intended.)

* ''Literature/TheRithmatist'' follows much of the ''Harry Potter'' formula, with the protagonist Joel suspecting Professor Nalizar (somewhat of a Snape {{Expy}}) of being behind the disappearances of students. It turns out that he didn't do it, and he even saves Joel from the real culprit... [[spoiler: but Joel then discovers that the real culprit was ''working for him''. And, having publicly declared Nalizar a hero, Joel can't plausibly accuse him again.]]

* An episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' had two missing boys from a neighborhood where a paroled child molester lived. Pretty much everybody is suspicious of him for obvious reasons, but they let him help in the investigation (his house was burned down so he had nothing better to do anyway). After spending most of the episode dodging whether or not he did or didn't have anything to do with the missing boys, and seemingly leading toward AnAesop that people can be redeemed or the like, but the actual truth turns out to be that [[spoiler: he ''did'' take the boys into his house after finding them hurt and scared and really ''didn't'' have any intentions of harming them, but he did give them a "sample" of liquor and as one of the boys died, he was held responsible because he didn't do anything about their injuries and didn't call anybody.]]

* The ''Series/{{House}}'' team had a patient once that Thirteen was suspicious of, for no other reason than that the patient gave her the heebie jeebies. Everyone else thought she was just being unreasonably jealous and antagonistic. Turns out the patient was a [[spoiler:psychopath]]; Thirteen's [[MotherNatureFatherScience female intuition]] was able to pick up on the fact that there was something seriously wrong with the patient.

* In ''Series/TheGoodPlace'', episode "Tahani Al-Jamil" plays Eleanor being overly suspicious of Tahani's all-loving behavior, in fact believing she was the one who sent a blackmail message for her in the previous episode. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]], as she [[spoiler: was not the person who sent the message (it was her supposed soulmate Jianyu/Jason, and it was not blackmail at all) and her demeanor seemed to be true.]] [[DoubleSubversion Subverted again]] [[spoiler: in season 1 finale, when it's revealed she was sent to the Bad Place because her selfless demeanor was indeed an act.]], but [[ZigzaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in that [[spoiler: Tahani is ''really'' a good-hearted, if somewhat spoiled and condescending person]]

** The bear in "In Your Footsteps". Jake suspects he wants to take Finn's identity, and Finn eventually agrees. This was not the case, however. It just wanted to be more heroic like Finn. In order for it to learn how to be a hero, Finn gives it the Hero's Handbook--[[GreatBigBookOfEverything the Enchiridion]]. [[spoiler:The bear then gives it to a BigBad, the Lich, proving he was evil all along, or at least an UnwittingPawn.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' offers a long-term example: In the first season, Anne's friend Marcy is absent outside of a couple very short [[TheVoiceless non-speaking]] cameos, and we're led to believe that she's just as much of a [[ToxicFriendInfluence toxic friend]] as Sasha is. When we finally meet her properly in Season 2's "Marcy At The Gates", she actually seems to be quite friendly and enthusiastic--but Sprig is extremely suspicious of her, and remains convinced that she's secretly a backstabber until the end of her introductory episode. [[spoiler:Come the end of season two, Marcy turns out to be the reason they all ended up in Amphibia in the first place, wanting to whisk them all away to another world so they wouldn't be separated by her family moving out of state, and never bothered to tell them any of this. Not long after reuniting with Anne, Marcy conspires with King Andrias to take the Calamity Box's power, though she wasn't aware of his actual plans.]]

--->-- ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''

* In ''Webcomic/EveryoneIsHome'', a ''Franchise/SuperSmashBros'' parody comic, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Cloud]] is treated by the rest of the roster as wrong for refusing to trust Sephiroth even after his ([[ItMakesSenseInContext head trauma-induced]]) HeelFaceTurn. [[CassandraTruth He's right]]. As soon as Cloud finally relents and gives Sephiroth a chance, [[FalselyReformedVillain he stabs everyone in the back]] by ''poisoning them'' at a dinner party.

** In [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E25ACanterlotWeddingPart1 the second season finale]], Twilight alone is suspicious of her brother's fiancee Cadance because she's not acting anything like the Cadance she knew. Despite Twilight's friends brushing her concerns off, "Cadance" is actually much ''worse'' than Twilight thought: she's an impostor who kidnapped the real Cadance for her own nefarious plot.

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

->'''Ron:''' Normally I'd say we learned suspicion and paranoia is bad, except that's what saved us.\\

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''

** When Ron re-encountered his mutant enemy Gill, who had seemed to have returned to being a human and given up being evil, Ron remained suspicious despite everyone calling him crazy (and [[ProducePelting throwing rotten vegetables at him]]). It turns out that he was right as Gill wanted to become a mutant again. It was at the end of that ordeal that Ron provided the page quote.

** ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited:'' In [[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS2E7Clash "Clash"]], Lex Luthor makes a big show of having reformed and uses his wealth to fund high-profile public works. Superman is suspicious, but the idealistic Captain Marvel wants to give Luthor the benefit of the doubt. Things come to a head when Luthor donates a power generator to provide free electricity to the planned community of Lexor City. Superman thinks the power generator must be evil technology for some sinister purpose, and when Captain Marvel disagrees, [[LetsYouAndHimFight the two come to blows]]. Their superpowered brawl destroys all of Lexor City--and in the aftermath, it becomes clear Superman was wrong, and Luthor's donation really was just a power generator. Then the final scenes make it clear Luthor really did have an evil scheme: to [[HeroWithBadPublicity make Superman look like a paranoid maniac]] by [[BatmanGambit playing on his suspicions to trick him into destroying a harmless power generator]].

* The third season of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' toys with this trope a little, but ends up averting it. For a while, many of the senshi tell Usagi that she should regard Uranus and Neptune as enemies. Of course, she doesn't do so. But in the end, Usagi seems to have been the one with the right idea, since the girls eventually become part of the normal senshi group.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' subverts this (meaning, they play the Suspicion Aesop straight) with Tom Demming. When it's revealed that a suspect might be from Demming's precinct (and Esposito's old precinct), Castle and ThoseTwoGuys do everything to try and confirm Demming as the bad guy...but it turns out he's not only not the bad guy, he's a sickeningly sweet, almost [[MartyStu Stu]]-ish, clean-cut good guy.

Compare with the MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold, which also tries to get a Suspicion Aesop across, but it's played straight - the loner being just misunderstood proves the moral right.

See also CassandraTruth, NoMereWindmill, ProperlyParanoid and TheVictimMustBeConfused. Contrast SheepInSheepsClothing - this is "Wolf in Wolf's Clothing".

A new character enters the setting, or a villain has decided to [[HeelFaceTurn reform themselves]]. But someone gets suspicious of them, and thinks they're up to no good. All the other people say [[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong not to be suspicious about new people]], and/or that they're just jealous (which may or may not be true). If you're a savvy viewer, you might do some TropeTelegraphing to expect that, after the main characters [[WhatTheHellHero go around stalking the character all day]], they will find out that he really was a good guy, and for him to be PutOnABus in exasperation.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'': Luthor convinces Perry White that he's gone straight and is given a laboratory in the Daily Planet building. ComicBook/JimmyOlsen (correctly) believes that Luthor is lying and tries to catch him committing a crime.

* ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen'' has a ''[[SubvertedTrope double-subverted]]'' suspicion aesop. Yes, really. It all starts with Emma Frost, who joined the team, but Logan was suspicious of her. For 19 episodes, she seemed reasonable, so it just seemed like the standard, unsubverted version. Then it became this trope when it was revealed that Emma was only there to gain their trust so that she could find Jean Grey for the Inner Circle. Indeed, she was responsible in part for the explosion that almost killed Jean and Charles Xavier, the one that launched the series and initially broke up the X-Men. But ''that'' was quickly subverted again, when we discover that she was doing this to try to save the world from the emergence of the Phoenix.