Awesome.My Hero Academia: The chapter revealed that Shindo was Playing Possum the entire time; because of the effects of his own Quirk (Vibrate), his body is already used to being paralyzed and recovers quickly. He manages to take out Gang Orca's henchmen who were going after the civilians. In one fell swoop despite his body still being numb.
VideoGame.Unreal Tournament III: The game allows the player to feign death. It can be incredibly useful if used correctly, and it's more believable, thanks to Ragdoll Physics.
Recap.Total Drama Paddle Field Earth: Emma and Chase play dead to trick some bears. As dramatic as Chase makes it, it works a little too well, causing the bears to bury them alive and hold a funeral for them.
Webcomic.Litterbox Comics: A group of baby possums tell Fran that they have to live with her because their mother died. Fran is briefly distraught before she realizes the act.
Film.Spacehunter Adventures In The Forbidden Zone: Wolff does this so well that even Washington - who has seen him use this trick before and knows how good he is at it - falls for it. Ironically, Wolff falls for it himself when it's done to him by Overdog.
Funny.Primal 2019: When Fang wants to trick the bats into carrying her up to the spider's lair, she pretends to be dead. The way she sticks her tongue out to sell it is a funny little touch.
VideoGame.Rune Factory 5: Cerberus, the first boss of the Belpha Ruins, will pretend to be dead when low on HP.
Characters.Resident Evil Outbreak: His defensive move, as noted above.When he's on the ground, Jim's virus gauge shoots up as if he's been incapacitated through damage. This can be temporarily stopped with anti-virus pills, however. More importantly, when Jim goes to play dead, he throws himself to the ground in a headlong dive, which is sometimes a more useful defensive move than playing dead would be by itself. Jim was considered a very strong character for speed runs because of this.
WesternAnimation.Rio: Jewel and Blu try this to escape the Smugglers early in the film. Blu makes a Large Ham out of himself about it.
Characters.Ice Age: Not Worth Killing: After giving Sid a scare by not letting go after helping him fake his death, Diego does let go at Manny's prompt. When Sid admits he thought Diego might actually eat him, Diego quips that he doesn’t eat "junk food", implying he doesn’t consider Sid a worthwhile meal.
KungFuPanda.Tropes Short Films: Mantis uses this to trick the crocodile bandits into opening the cage he was trapped in.
PhantasyStarOnline2.Tropes N To Z: (Nab) Rappies fake their death. After a few moments they'll get up and make a run for it, in which the players can hit them again to make them drop an item.
Manga.Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders: X-Ray of Pain: During the final battle with DIO, Jotaro lures his opponent into Star Platinum's short range by Playing Possum. Knowing that his opponent is a vampire with a potent Healing Factor, he makes sure to put all his strength into destroying his brain, and an X-ray shot of DIO's skull shattering is used to illustrate this when the blow connects.
Characters.Goblin Slayer Antagonists: Combat Pragmatist: All goblins are fully aware of their physical and mental weaknesses, and do everything they can to give themselves an edge, including utilizing Poisoned Weapons that will kill adventurers even if the initial stab doesn't do any serious damage, will strike their legs to knock them down when the opportunity is available, outright gang up and dog-pile on anybody that isn't strong enough to resist, and will even take to Playing Possum in order to strike when their guards are down.
Characters.X Factor: Jamie "shoots" Vance in the head after spilling the beans on everything Sheila was doing. It turns out that Jamie actually shot Vance with a paint gun and Vance, having caught on to what Jamie was really doing, was playing possum, while Sheila confessed to her treachery. Vance then shoots both Clay and Sheila In the Back.
Webcomic.True Magic: Kiku pretends to be dead after Joe “kills him” with a tickling technique in their match. The nobleman overseeing the pit matches knows that Kiku isn’t dead when he investigates more closely — but happily declares him dead anyway and throws him into the Pit’s titular pit.
Characters.Alien Isolation: You may occasionally find seemingly dead Working Joes on the floor, only to turn your back and have them grab your leg so they can drag you in for the kill. Mercifully, they will only do this if you're both close enough and not watching them. You also can't search them, which is a dead giveaway. You can also identify them from a distance by seeing that their eyes are still glowing.
Skyrim.Tropes N To T: Some Draugr like to hide in alcoves with the (completely) dead Draugr, only getting up after you've walked past them. It works if you aren't paying attention, but the only ones that do this are the ones wearing armor and it's easy to catch them in the act. Then you get free hits until they stand up or, with a bow/crossbow, you can take them out before they get the chance.
Recap.Carnival Row S 1 E 8 The Gloaming: Vignette pretends she hanged herself in the holding cell to escape when the police open it. She then tries to flee but is caught.
Characters.Over The Hedge: Ozzie does this a lot throughout the film and the game, sometimes in rather inappropriate situations. He does however put this to good use during one of the heists, but is nearly caught by Dwayne as a result.
Film.Dragonheart A New Beginning: Done by Osric and his men in battle. Osric was pretending that he was dying and needed Drake's heart, but when Geoff realized that Osric wasn't wounded, some of Osric's "dead" men jumped up and attacked.
YMMV.Secret City: Cortes joins Santiaga in his fight with Cthulhy and Tasmit, deliberanely gets nearly killed, feigns death and is almost crushed by Cthulhu's spike foot, then stabs him in his only weak point with a gauntlet-mounted circular saw and puts inside an artifact that freezes Cthulhu's inner body to the absolute zero. What for? For he now has Cthulhu's undamaged corpse, so he can make a dummy of it and trade it for the final part of aforementioned MacGuffin.
Funny.Henry Stickmin Series: One of the options at the beginning of the game is to play dead. This results in Grigori calling Dmitri on what to do before throwing Henry out the garbage chute to an actual death. FAIL Screen: Pretty convincing there.
Awesome.AJ Lee: She won the Divas Battle Royale by very effectively Playing Possum: early in the match, she gets kicked in the face and pretends to be knocked out until there's only one other contestant left, Layla. Layla thinks she's won until the ref tells her that to win, she must get every opponent out of the ring. So she does her best to haul an 'unconscious' AJ over the ropes... until AJ pulls away and kicks her out of the ring.
Characters.Goodbye To Halos: Unintentionally. After trying to using the Market Square gate she ends up unconscious on a beach. Xiaolei, not wanting to spend too much time exposing BB to a corpse, doesn't check to see if she's alive.
WesternAnimation.Ice Age 1: Sid does this to get rid of Carl and Frank, making them think Diego has already killed him. It works, and the two are never seen again.
VideoGame.Expert: One of the terrorist mooks (with long hair and clad in green uniforms) requires two hits to kill. When shot the first time they'll fall over like every other mook, only to suddenly sit up and shoot you In the Back with their sidearm. Though you could tell they're not dead since they don't drop an item.
TransformersPrime.Tropes G To R: In "Out Of The Past", after Arcee shoots out the ceiling, burying Shockwave under a pile of rocks, Starscream appears with several mooks and says that "It appears that Shockwave's arrogance was his undoing". Never mind the fact that arrogance is Starscream's primary personality trait, earlier in that episode he spent too much time grandstanding and failed to kill a captive Cliffjumper because of it.Though Shockwave himself commented earlier that "only Starscream could fail to dispose of a helpless captive", despite the fact that the only reason Cliffjumper got out was because Shockwave didn't realize he failed to kill Arcee.
VideoGame.First Encounter Assault Recon: In the first game, critically injured Replica soldiers may lay down and pretend to die, then get back up to ambush you a little later. If you have a keen eye, you can tell when they do this as they sort of gently lay down instead of collapsing into a physics ragdoll like on a normal death. In the third game, the cultists will often pretend to be one of the many corpses littering the environment, only to get up and attack when you get close.
Recap.Film Reroll Rogue Two A New Hope: Ori’s plan, which Cassian eventually agrees to, amounts to having the team all don spacesuits, pretend to be spacejunk, and thus get taken in through the Death Star’s automatic raw material collection system. However, they all have to lie completely still lest they be incinerated by a laser beam, which is what happens to one unfortunate Rebel.
Recap.Film Reroll Rogue One: Jyn does this to avoid Krennic and his men after becoming the Sole Survivor of the Final Battle who hasn't left the room yet. It works... at least for a while.
BondVillainStupidity.Western Animation: Poison Ivy fouls up in her debut episode by slowly taking her time taunting and flirting with Batman, rather than kissing him the same length she did Harvey Dent earlier, inadvertently ensuring he had enough strength to pull off a Playing Possum maneuver to escape her jumbo monster flytrap's Vine Tentacles.
Film.Killer Constable: The constable team (what remains of...) comes across a ruined village, it's inhabitants slaughtered by bandits. But upon closer inspection, it turns out those corpses are bandits remaining behind to ambush the heroes.
Characters.Pale Kennet Powers: She does this, not always intentionally. A human child suddenly keeling over, with or without screaming, is very alarming and the Kennet trio know how to take advantage of the confusion.
Recap.My Hero Academia S 3 E 20 Special Episode Save The World With Love: All Might as the villain was playing dead and bolted while the students stood around deducing the mystery. The students score zero points because they assumed that it was All Might himself breaking character instead of the villain he was playing.
CodeGeassThePreparedRebellion.Tropes J To P: When Sayoko barely managed to resist a sleep-inducing Geass, she chose to pretend to be under its effects and stay with the unconscious Lelouch and Nunnally rather than actively tracking the unknown threat in her weakened state. That way, if one or more of them are the intended target, then she'd be able to try and catch the attacker off-guard at the last second.
Film.Black Mask: After Jimmy gets set alight and collapses, a few police officers think he’s finally down for good (being set on fire and burning for a full minute onscreen… No One Could Survive That!) and extinguishes the flames. Natch, Jimmy simply gets back up, grabs a nearby gun, and continues firing away.
Literature.Reynard The Fox: A frequent technique of Reynard's whenever he wants to get close to someone without arousing suspicion.
VideoGame.The Oregon Trail 2021: Bears Are Bad News: One random event that can happen is a bear coming along and injuring one of your party members. You then have to either scare the bear away with a bullet (if you have any) or play dead, the success of which depends on your character's Composure. You don't get long to choose.
Literature.Dragonheart: During the training scene at the beginning, Bowen does this after falling off a wall to lure Einon closer to him. Einon does this later, during his fight with Bowen in the castle, after falling down a flight of stairs. Draco tries this at the marsh village, leading to Corpsing when Kara's sabotaging the con by jumping on his stomach and tickling him with a knife.
Film.THX 1138: Covers Always Lie: On the poster, someone's ear (obviously not Robert Duvall's) is tagged with the name "THX 1138." In the film, workers wear name badges rather than ear tags to identify themselves. THX gets his ear tagged because he's pretending to be a random corpse in a morgue to evade his pursuers, so his tag wouldn't have his name on it.
Film.Tumbleweed: Tigre uses this tactic in an attempt to get the drop on Jim at the start of the film. Later, Jim, Murch and the remains of the posse do this to lure the Yaqui into ambush range.
Film.Godzilla Vs Kong: Realizing they don't have much chance fighting Godzilla in the middle of the ocean, the surviving ships carrying Kong completely power down to make Godzilla think they've been destroyed (or the very least, that they're admitting defeat). Kong, already exhausted by his initial battle with Godzilla, is in no position to disagree, but does flash Godzilla a Death Glare as he swims away. Of course, now that they're "dead" they can't move or else Godzilla will realize they were just pretending and return, so they switch to carrying Kong by air.
Recap.Transformers Prime S 1 E 17 Crisscross: Arcee waits until the MECH soldiers remove Airachnid's webbing. Just as a soldier points a wicked drill at her chest, she quickly breaks out.
Webcomic.Ffreires Naru Fox AU: Slashed Throat: Becomes the fate of Tayuya — Ino possesses her, and Sakura gets into position, slitting her throat the moment Ino leaps back out of her body. During the Gaara Rescue Arc, Kabuto threatens to inflict this upon Gaara, only to find that his captive was Playing Possum.
Characters.Shadow Of The Fox: Fools Yumeko and Tatsumi into thinking they killed him, only to catch them off guard and tear his hand through Tatsumi's chest.
Film.New Jack City: Dressing as the Enemy: Inverted. Nino dresses up as the cop whose throat was cut by him during the shootout between the CMB and the cops to lure Park into a false sense of security and then stab him to death when checking his "dead body".
Series.Space Above And Beyond: Shooting Gallery: In "Who Monitors the Birds?", Hawkes is Playing Possum after the officer he was working with is killed, and has a flashback to the officer (played by Dale Dye) recruiting him from a firing range after witnessing his marksmanship. We then flash back to the present where three Chig soldiers have finished hacking up the officer's body and are now advancing on Hawke, who promptly puts his shooting skills to the test.
Awesome.Shang Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings: Another one for Trevor: he does such a skillful job of playing dead during the battle that he even fools Morris for a few moments, until he sticks his head up and tells Morris to do it too. The really awesome part here is how clever the tactic is: Trevor has nothing resembling combat training, and is dead weight at best. This is actually his best tactic for staying alive. It also means that the Dweller won't get a power-up from his soul because none of the soul-stealers would see him as anything other than dead at first glance, and even more importantly, it means that none of the actual fighters waste time, resources, or even a life, defending him.
VideoGame.Kuon: Sometimes, Gaki and Yamabito will drop to the ground without dying, ready to stand up and attack again if left unchecked. The ruse is revealed by the lack of a blood puddle as they die.
Characters.Space Station 13: Reviving Enemy: The "regenerative/reviving stasis" ability allows the changeling to enter a death-like state where it will eventually reanimate with perfect health. On /tg/station and related branches, this ability can be used when the changeling is already dead. Stasis can only be stopped by gibbing or incinerating the changeling, necessitating Precautionary Corpse Disposal.
VideoGame.Intruder: Pressing K makes you ragdoll, allowing you to fake death. Players can shoot knocked down players at the risk of revealing their location, or they can move over to arrest them at the risk of being ambushed.
Literature.Sigma Force: Bloodline's climax is the staged "assassination" of President Gant, who already knew that someone in his own family may be responsible for Amanda's kidnapping, with Gray as the "killer" sniper and Tucker detonating small explosives meant to make the President bleed as part of the ruse. After that, Sigma would only have six hours to uncover the source of their troubles before the President is to be stated to have "miraculously survived" the attempt.
Recap.Big Hero 6 The Series S 2 E 10 Lie Detector: Baymax fakes being hit by the Bessie monster's anti-tech beam so he can get a surprise attack in. He learned this from Hiro, who told him that people lie so as to spare others from being hurt.
VideoGame.Five Nights At Freddys 1: The previous night shift guard suggests doing going limp as a last resort to fool the animatronics into thinking you are simply an empty costume, but admits it would probably be a bad idea. It doeesn't actually affect anything.
Characters.Scream Ghostface: After Dewey shoots her three times, she pretends to be unconscious to get the drop on him when he returns to finish her off with a shot to the head.
Characters.Friday The13th Jason Voorhees: The Man They Couldn't Hang: Chris in Part III tries off him by putting him on a noose and dropping him, but Jason climbs down from it after more likely Playing Possum for a moment. In Jason X it's mentioned that he survived multiple execution attempts while imprisoned at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. Electrocution, gas, firing squad, hanging... not one of them succeeded. Eventually, Rowan gave up and decided the only way to stop Jason for good was by freezing him.
Film.Outpost: In the militia camp, Lena and Wallace hide among the dead bodies.
Manga.Inubaka: Lupin is easily intimidated by larger dogs and immediately pretends to be dead in their presence.
DarthWiki.Koragasa Renewal: She escapes as soon as the Gentleman leaves the room, having seemingly fainted from her wound.
Recap.Murder Drones E 6 Dead End: Doll attempts to ensnare our protagonists by pretending to have been boot-looped by a Sentinel by playing a GIF on her face-visor simulating the usual symptom of boot-looping. Uzi, N, and V see right through the act, but Tessa doesn't.
Characters.The Kaskade Region: Fitting for an opossum-based Pokémon. They're so good at it that they actually are somewhat dead, gaining Ghost abilities.
Awesome.Captain America: Here's another one for Bucky as Cap. In New Avengers #58, as the team is trapped with the Dark Avengers in a sewer, Ares tosses his axe straight for them. Bucky manages to block it but is knocked over from the sheer impact. As Ares calmly strolls over to finish the job, Bucky, who was Playing Possum, sticks his gun under Ares' chin and empties the magazine into Ares. Ares keels over, face-first into the sewage, and manages to blurt out an embarrassed "Impressive." as Bucky and the team escape.
Characters.Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online Team LPFM: After LLENN massacres her entire team, Clarence tries to avoid their fate by pretending to be one of the dead corpses on the ground. LLENN notices there should be one more person and exposes her by shooting at the corpse she's using for cover.
Characters.Medal Of Honor Pacific Assault: A platoon of them pull this off in order to catch Minoso and Conlin off-guard during the Battle for Bloody Ridge. You can turn it on them if you spot them and mow them down while they are on the ground.
WesternAnimation.Hare Brush: Bears Are Bad News: Elmer at one point tricks Bugs into entering a cave inhabited by a vicious bear. The bear chases Bugs, until he plays dead, which unfortunately, led the bear to bury him...on a ledge.
Film.My Bloody Valentine: While crossing a small bridge, Axel breaks part of the rail, screams, and throws his hat into the water, to make himself out to be a victim.
Funny.The Crumpets: Caprice and Cassandra oppose the latter's mother testing them for travel preparedness by laying on the ground and Playing Possum in "Girls On Holiday".
DiariesOfAMadman.Tropes O To Z: Kat tries this by pretending to be knocked out after being caught stealing from Nav's room. Nav's smart enough not to fall for it. Kat: You know me too well, Nav. Nav fakes being asleep in order to get the drop on a griffon assassin in Chapter 46.
Recap.Westworld S 03 E 01 Parce Domine: Dolores fakes being disabled by Martin, allowing him to take her somewhere remote so she can kill his goons then Kill and Replace him.
VideoGame.Orcs Must Die: During the flashback sequences that has you play as a younger Cygnus, his special ability allows him to play dead to regenerate health and mana, a reference to his abilities in Unchained.
Characters.Dark Souls IIIDLC Characters: On occasion, the player may encounter what appears to be a dead pygmy, only for it to get up and attack when the player gets too close (or worse, waiting for them to pass)
