Sandbox / I Showed You This Wick Check Knowing Youd Give It To TRS

Wick Check for Feed the Mole

Wicks Checked: 50/50

Give the mole information you want your enemies to believe 24/ 50

• Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy: George Washington pulled this on a double spy. He had the guards leave him and John Honeyman. Washington then used this opportunity to feed false information to Honeyman for him to relay to Col. Rall and slipped Honeyman a key so that he could escape from the Guardhouse. Honeyman went to Rall, gave him the false information and that was a major contribution to how George Washington won the Battle of Trenton in 1776.^note Rall failed pathetically in a list of other ways, as well, starting with "ego".
• Treachery Cover Up: The Fourth Protocol. The Chessmaster head of British Intelligence covers up a False Flag Operation involving a government minister because it makes more sense to Feed the Mole. On discovering a Soviet plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on British soil, he covers that up as well in an unspoken agreement with his KGB opposite number (in exchange for information to end the plot), because exposure of the plan could heat up the Cold War and invite Soviet retaliation.
• Girls und Panzer: Feed the Mole: The first team Oorai faces in Das Finale guesses that Yukari will sneak into the school for reconnaissance, and deliberately overplays their internal troubles while she's there so Oorai will be lured into a false sense of complacency.
• Girl Genius Wulfenbach Empire: The Mole: Tarvek got kicked from Castle Wulfenbach because of this reason and he countered with basically "Who isn't?". The students not only being hostage, they are also spying on Wulfenbach from inside his base of operation. (Or at least, sending the information the Baron wants them to have to their families.)
• Stargate SG 1 Allies Of The SGC: I Did What I Had to Do: Her justification for allowing Tanith to live so the Tok'ra can use him to Feed the Mole, despite his murder of Shaun'auc at the fact that his unwilling host is still suffering.
• The Mentalist: Feed the Mole: Jane tells him that Stiles has almost certainly noticed his Character Tic and ID'd him, yet has let him stay in the church presumably for this reason. Steven admits that he has in fact failed to get any useful information for a suspiciously long time.
• Roger, Roger: Feed the Mole: Just before the Battle of Kamino, Ventress and General Grievous deliberately leak a transmission about the attack as part of a Xanatos Gambit.
• Allied: Artistic Licence – History: The fact that there are two Nazi agents in Hampstead running Marianne. Though they wouldn't find out till after the war, MI5 successfully turned or imprisoned all but one German agent from relatively early on - and the sole exception killed themselves before capture. When it turns out she is a traitor, it would be much more likely they'd turn her or secretly Feed the Mole, especially so close to D-Day, and especially when she was clearly acting under duress and willing to turn. This successfully misled the Germans into believing the Allies would attack Calais, not Normandy.
• In Old Arizona: Feed the Mole: After the Cisco Kid finds out that Tonia Maria has betrayed him, he tells her that he's leaving town, which prompts her to write a note to Dunn telling him to come and get the Kid. The Cisco Kid then takes a terrible revenge by intercepting and altering that note.
• King Arthur Legend Of The Sword: Out-Gambitted: Arthur realises the best way is not to raise a rebel army but to lure out King Vortigern by using himself as The Bait and assassinate him. Maggie brings word of the King traveling to Londinium to raise support from his Barons, so they decide to snipe him with a long bow shot fired by Goosefat. However the King knows Maggie is in league with the rebels and has himself replaced with an imposter. Ironically Arthur realises it's a trap and calls off the assassination, only for Goosefat to spring it anyway by shooting the blacklegs commander Mercia because he has a grudge against him.
• Dragon Rider: Feed the Mole: Twigleg, to save Ben's life, gives Nettlebrand fake directions to the Rim of Heaven so he'll be trapped in a desert. And then turned against them when Nettlebrand not only survives, but gets Gravelbeard to fudge a story about his demise so the good guys don't know they're being followed.
• Factory of the Gods: Feed the Mole: Realizing Luxathia is controlling Kurli through her pale class, Julian feeds her a decoy plan to kill her once she is back on Earth by use of a portal hidden on her ship to send a killer robot after her. In actuality he also rigged her fusion engine to disable its magnetic containment.
• Lady of the Lake Sapkowski: Feed the Mole: Geralt gives Fringilla false information on the location of Vilgefortz's lair, knowing she'll report it to the Lodge of Sorceresses. The Lodge promptly goes racing off to the location Fringilla provides, only to learn too late Geralt duped them with a false trail so he could get to Ciri and Vilgefortz without their interference.
• Turn Coat: Feed the Mole: Harry calls the Council switchboard to send up a long message about his plot to expose the traitor, prove Morgan's innocence, and all because of an informant. He then has her read the entire message back to him, allowing everyone around her to hear it. This entire line is a lie meant to draw out the traitor into acting quickly and without a full plan.
• Fan Works: 'Mario & Luigi fanfic Darkest Timeline'': Bowser is once again the King of Koopas and the ruler of his kingdom. In the opening parts of the fic, Bowser found out about a spy in his ranks and fed the spy false info in order to distract the Mario Brothers so he could steal Professor E. Gadd's time machine and get rid of the Mario Brothers for good. When Bowser ends up in the future, he heads toward his future counterpart and through a series of deductions is able to figure out that the demon helping Emperor Bowser is the one who has manipulated everything. When Mephistopheles offers Bowser a similar deal as he offered Bowser's future counterpart in the past, this Bowser, having learned how pointless trying to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom is, refuses his offer. After returning to the present, Bowser acknowledges Mario and Luigi as Worthy Opponents and walks away to do something different with his life.
• Doctor Who S29 E13 "Last of the Time Lords": Feed the Mole: Martha lets Professor Docherty know about the route she and Tom plan on taking through London because getting captured is the next step in her plan.
• Superman: The Animated Series S1 E11 "My Girl": Feed the Mole: During a meal with Lana, Lex openly talks on the phone to Eelan about a shipment to Central City so Superman will be 500 miles away when Lana is abducted. Superman isn't fooled, though, as he knows Lex prefers to play things much closer to the vest rather than openly talk about details.
• Supernatural S 14 E 09 The Spear: Feed the Mole: Michael uses Garth to send false intel about his/her forces taking out Kaia in Omaha. Dean and Castiel are the only one's who show up at Kaia's hideout because Michael wants them to get the Spear first.
• The A Team S 3 E 8 The Island: Feed the Mole: Kalani, the Girl of the Week, is afraid of Vescari wiping out her village as revenge for the team's actions, so when she overhears the A-Team planning their attack, she goes to Vescari and warns him in exchange for his promise to spare her village. It turns out the Team saw it coming and intentionally let her hear a false plan with a different route of approach and a different time of day.
• Doctor Syn ("The Scarecrow"): Feed the Mole: The Scarecrow gives Ransley barrels of seawater rather than brandy, knowing that Ransley will try to sell it himself and use the profits to flee. Then, Dr. Syn asks that the barrels be inspected during the trial in order to get Ransley and his sons off from a capital offense.
• Samurai Girl: Feed the Mole: Heaven gives a fake location of where to take the artifacts so that Karen will relay the wrong location.
• Hamlet: The Mole: Claudius brings Hamlet's college buddies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to Elsinore to spy on Hamlet for him. Hamlet sees through it almost immediately and begins to Feed the Mole. Probably. He's not exactly being forthcoming with us, either, so for all we know he could be telling them the truth.
• Ys: Feed the Mole: One of the demons tells Ado-roo (Adol in roo form that is mistaken for a demon by many humans and demons and is able to speak and understand the demons' language) that a key item is in the subterranean canal in Ys II. However, she lies about what part of the subterranean canal that item is in.
• Villainous Nights: Feed the Mole: In Duke's route, Monarch's stint spying on Optimus for the Syndicate doesn't last very long before the bad guys catch on and feed her false information to lure her and/or the team into a trap.

Bait the mole by giving different people different information and seeing which one your enemy reacts to 11/ 50

• Orphan Black: Associates: One-Steve Limit: Averted. She has the same first name as the protagonist, Sarah Manning. This becomes a plot point when Alison uses a Feed the Mole trick to find out that Donnie has been spying on her for Leekie.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search: Feed the Mole: What Ursa's letter claiming that Zuko isn't Ozai's biological son turns out to be. She suspected that Ozai was having someone spy on her by reading her personal letters, so she decided to test out it by writing something that would be sure make Ozai upset and cause him to give himself away. When Ozai confronts her over it, it turns out that he didn't buy the letter's statement for a second, because he fully well knows that it an impossibility, and he is actually just upset that she thought such a transparent lie would ever trick him.
• Ned Kelly (2003): Feed the Mole: Ned and Joe suspect that Aaron Sherritt is an informant for the police. So they tell him that they plan to rob a bank in Beechworth. Then, they see that policemen are sent to Beechworth to protect the bank, so they understand that they were right and Joe kills Aaron in retaliation.
• A Clash of Kings: Feed the Mole: Tyrion shares his plans with three people he suspects are in the employ of Cersei. However, he told each person something different, and when Cersei confronts him, her response inadvertently reveals the source of the leak.
  • Tyrion takes similar action several times throughout the book, since in King's Landing there are probably an infinite number of moles to be fed.
• Without Remorse: Feed the Mole: Bob Ritter uses this, feeding different amounts of information to different possible leaks, then using the response of the KGB officer he meets with to identify Wally Hicks as the specific leak. This actually backfires - Hicks wasn't the traitor, only the traitor's unwitting source. As a result, when Ritter has Kelly kill Hicks in revenge, the real traitor remains on the loose, resulting in the CIA not learning of Cassius until Red Rabbit and not catching him until The Hunt for Red October, both of which take place a decade later.
• Live-Action TV: A to G: The Good Wife: Lemond Bishop is Chicago’s top drug kingpin and a top client of Lockhart/Gardner and later Florrick/Agos. A suave and eloquent man, Bishop has used his charisma and intelligence to remain one step ahead of the authorities for years, while establishing a chain of successful legitimate businesses with his drug money and making plans to retire from the game altogether. When Bishop suspects that there is a leak in Florrick/Agos, he cunningly feeds the mole and correctly determines that Alicia’s phone is being tapped. Hiding a terrifying ruthlessness beneath his friendly demeanour, Bishop is implied to have ordered his wife’s death while making it look like a drug overdose to prevent her from gaining custody of their son in their divorce, intimidates witnesses, including his own sister, and is the only person shown to be capable of genuinely frightening Kalinda Sharma. When he is finally arrested, Bishop’s only concern is that his son would have to witness this, as Bishop has endeavoured to shield him from his criminal life.
• Literature: Outbound Flight: The overarching plot of Mercy Kill: the head of Galactic Alliance intelligence is a traitor and has turned one of his crack teams, the Wraiths, loose on a co-conspirator, hoping for one of two outcomes. Either they expose the conspirator and the head of Intelligence can figure out how and patch the leak, or they don't and both men are safe. Face Loran, head of the Wraiths, comes up with a suitably brilliant counter-scheme: suspecting his boss from the outset, he creates two teams for the job and reports on the activities of a third that is completely fictitious. Sure enough, the head of Intelligence warns his ally about the fake Wraiths, implicating himself and warning Face to bring hidden backup to their confrontation.
• Supergirl (2015) S2E2 "The Last Children of Krypton": Feed the Mole: Alex gives the suspected Cadmus mole an assignment to move kryptonite, hoping he'll expose himself. Unfortunately for her, Cadmus sees this coming and has an ambush prepared.
• Sweet Fuse: At Your Side: Feed the Mole: Inverted. Hogstein intentionally gives Urabe an incorrect answer to the third day's final puzzle in order to find out if Urabe will continue to play The Mole for him or spill the beans in order to help the others.
• Danger Mouse: Feed the Mole: In "The Unusual Suspects", DM attempts to smoke out the mole by telling each agent a different lie about where he's hidden the MacGuffin and seeing if any of them take the bait.
• The Good Wife: Magnificent Bastard: Lemond Bishop is Chicago’s top drug kingpin and a top client of Lockhart/Gardner and later Florrick/Agos. A suave and eloquent man, Bishop has used his charisma and intelligence to remain one step ahead of the authorities for years, while establishing a chain of successful legitimate businesses with his drug money and making plans to retire from the game altogether. When Bishop suspects that there is a leak in Florrick/Agos, he cunningly feeds the mole and correctly determines that Alicia’s phone is being tapped. Hiding a terrifying ruthlessness beneath his friendly demeanour, Bishop is implied to have ordered his wife’s death while making it look like a drug overdose to prevent her from gaining custody of their son in their divorce, intimidates witnesses, including his own sister, and is the only person shown to be capable of genuinely frightening Kalinda Sharma. When he is finally arrested, Bishop’s only concern is that his son would have to witness this, as Bishop has endeavoured to shield him from his criminal life.

Both of the above 1/ 50

• TV Tropes Additional Evil Overlord Vows Cellblock I: The misinformation campaign regarding my one secret weakness shall involve several fake weaknesses, each confided in a different person. This way, if the hero attempts to vanquish me by dousing me with lemon-lime sports soft drink, I will know immediately who I need to issue arrest and termination orders for once I dispatch that annoying do-gooder.

Zero context and potholes 12/ 50

• Teen Superspy: Tortall Universe: Aly in the Trickster's Duet is a borderline example. While she is the spymaster for a very successful rebellion and later government, she has this as her main job (she's 17), lacks any special gadgets (medieval society) and relies on traditional, entirely un-flashy techniques, like feeding the mole and carefully asking questions. So, while she is indeed a teenager and a very capable spy, she isn't working the way we'd expect her to at all.^note Not to mention that 16 is the age of adulthood in that society.
• Telikos Thanatos: The Mole: For a reason.
• 9 Chickweed Lane: Love Makes You Dumb: Gran's reason for not immediately informing her future husband that she'd been compromised was that the German officer that told her to her face that they knew what she was was that he was a good-looking morally ambiguous figure.
• Baśń O Ludziach Stąd: Manipulative Bastard: Otello tries. But Columbus and Julietta trick him.
• The Art of War (Sun Tzu): Feed the Mole: A suggested tactic. In general, Sun Zi approves of using any means to end wars decisively.
• The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress: The Mole: On both sides, though the ones infiltrating the new resistance get quarantined.
• Codex Alera Alerans: Feed the Mole: After they discover she is a mole, she's allowed to remain with the Cursor candidates "undiscovered" because it's easier to keep an eye on her than to try to hunt down whatever replacement Kalarus would install.
• The Night of Wishes: Feed the Mole: Beelzebub knew all along that Maurizio was an agent of the Animal Council and kept him in the dark with a facade of kindness (and tranquillizers).
• Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 10 Counterpoint: Feed the Mole: Janeway plays along with Kashyk's gambit.
• The Good Wife S 1 E 23 Running: Feed the Mole: What Lana accuses Kalinda of.
• Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome: Feed the Mole: Turns out that's why the humans want Dr. Kelly to succeed.
• The Wager: Feed the Mole: Possible to do with Marwood's spies.

Misuse 2/ 50

• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Moremi Ajasoro, 12th century Queen of the Yoruba, was married to the king of Ife Ife, and their kingdom was at war with a mysterious rival tribe, who kept raiding their realm and enslaving their people. Moremi sacrificed all she had to the river god in her effort to understand who these people were and how they fought. She daringly allowed herself to be captured by the enemies and, being an enchantingly beautiful woman, she soon caught the attention of their king, who married her. Biding her time, Moremi the spy queen studied the secrets of her captors, including those of their army, and when the time was right she fled home to Ife Ife (an adventure in itself) and informed the Yoruba of these secrets; the Yoruba soon crushed them in battle. - This is just The Mole.
• Personality Conflicts: The Mole / Feed the Mole: A weirdly benevolent version. Daystar is assigned to Earth by the Council of Worlds and IGPF to report back on the activities of Zordon and the Terran Power Rangers and ensure they never violate the interdict in place. She's already conspiring with them by the time she gets back to the planet. - Disregarding the tropeslashing, this is a textbook Double Agent.