Zero-Approval Gambit

"Bruce Wayne: People are dying, Alfred. What would you have me do?

Alfred: Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it, but that's the point of Batman. He can be the outcast. He can make the choice no one else can make: the right choice."

- The Dark Knight

Sometimes to make a Heroic Sacrifice, a hero needn't die. Sometimes he must sacrifice something else... his good name, his reputation and his integrity.

A character attempting a Zero Approval Gambit will deliberately paint himself in a bad light in order to achieve some greater good. This might involve falsely confessing to a crime he didn't commit, or it might involve him being an enormous Jerkass contrary to his usual nature. The net result is that he will be hated, hunted or disgraced for all time. In short, he willingly becomes a Hero With Bad Publicity. Note that this isn't a short-term trick. A Zero Approval Gambit is usually permanent or takes a huge amount of work to undo.

This is an inverse of Villain With Good Publicity; compare Good Is Not Nice, Necessarily Evil, Noble Demon, What the Hell, Hero?. Can result in a Hero With an F In Good or a Zero Percent Approval Rating (in fact, this can be the cornerstone of the entire gambit). Sometimes done to facilitate a Genghis Gambit. Most of the time it involves becoming a Silent Scapegoat.

Anime & Manga

 * from Naruto and Naruto: Shippuuden. Probably the most intense example available, since it Also because he had to adopt the mask of an Akatsuki member for years, something he hated, just to keep up the act and continue to be of use to Konoha by
 * In Code Geass,  sets himself up as the functional emperor of the world and runs Britannia with an iron fist. He does this in order to unite the world against a single, common enemy, i.e. himself. Once this is accomplished,  Bonus points for being an accidental pun on this trope.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima sees attempt this to create an everlasting peace in Mudus Magicus; she was made out to be the instigator of the war, choosing to accept this (they were going to execute her)..
 * Well, she didn't exactly attempt it so much as
 * The TRUE source of all the Badass in Negi's DNA.
 * Taiga's run for Student Council President in Toradora was essentially this. Declaring that if elected she'd essentially be an Evil High School Overlord was part of a plan to get the reluctant Kitamura to step up to the plate.
 * Jintetsu of Kurogane does this almost compulsively, since he thinks so little of himself. The most prominent example is when he.
 * Fullmetal Alchemist:
 * Anthy from Shoujo Kakumei Utena combines this trope with The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask. It turns out
 * In the Edolas arc of Fairy Tail,  wanted to paint himself as the villain who made the magic go away (it actually was his fault) so that   could kill him and be the hero who could reunite Edolas.   wanted to do it the other way around. In the end, however, it is resolved when Natsu steps up as the Great Demon King Dragneel so no one has to die.
 * The Record of a Fallen Vampire.  If that's not a Zero Approval Gambit, nothing is.
 * In Special A we discover that antagonist Yahiro Saiga pulled one of these years ago. Having discovered that one of Akira's friends was a Gold Digger who was only interested in using her for her money, Yahiro used his family's wealth and his own skill as a Manipulative Illegitimate child to force the girl to transfer. Akira discovered this, and rather than telling her why he did it, Yahiro let's her think of him as a monster and maintain her happy memories of her friendship. Flashforward a few years to the series, and Akira still hates him for what he did, as does Yahiro's ex-friend Kei, and most of the Special A class. He doesn't try to correct their image of him, and instead plays the villain until well into the series.
 * Gundam Wing has a two-person variation, where Zechs Merquise and Treize Khushrenada put themselves in charge of the militaries of the space colonies and Earth respectively and then start the biggest, most terrible war they can so the common man will finally realize War Is Hell and actually do something to prevent it. This is apparently somewhat subtle in the anime; the manga and novelization have Zechs come right out and admit to this trope.
 * Partially averted in Inazuma Eleven where in the fourth season, Inazuma Eleven GO, . It is partially averted since quite a few people in-universe know he's actually   such that it doesn't hurt his reputation that much to anyone inside the Fourth Wall. In the end his gambit paid off and his position transitioned to the leadership of La Résistance leader and Big Good Hibiki Seigou, thereby ensuring the safety of soccer for everyone. Funnily, it was played straight with the fandom.

Comics

 * Booster Gold, who dooms himself to being seen as a fame-obsessed fool while he's saving the universe through time travel. Since his foes are also time travelers, hiding his true importance reduces the risk of being targeted for a Grandfather Paradox.
 * On the inside, Batman is one of the most compassionate, good-hearted, and moral individuals on the face of the Earth. But hardly anyone has ever seen this side of him because he spends almost all his time cultivating a fearsome image and a gruff persona so that criminals will be afraid of him. The downside is that law-abiding members of society end up afraid of him too and other heroes think he's a jerk (if they aren't also afraid of him).
 * This is a reoccuring theme in Marvel Comics. Most heroes have gone through this at one point or another.
 * The Achille Talon story Le roi des zotres depends on this. The only other choice for ruler being a peace-loving beatnik, Achille sets out to look like a bloodthirsty madman channeling the worst dictators of history. Successfully pissing off every single age branch, social class and profession, he barely escapes with his life but the country is restored.

Fanfic

 * Explicitly stated in Fallout Equestria: Littlepip, having become the Wasteland's face of good, acknowledges the need to secure its safety and recovery, despite what the world - and her friends - might think of her.
 * Applies to as well.
 * This is, essentially, what the dwarven noble protagonist does in the opening chapters of Dragon Age the Crown of Thorns, an elaborate Dragon Age Alternate Universe fanfiction which has six wardens, plus Alistair, as main cast, among other things.
 * In Armored Core From the Ashes, Ghost may be doing this. Hopefully.
 * In the Pony POV Series, Princess Celestia is more than willing to use an alias to write unflattering tabloid articles about herself if it benefits the greater good in some way. The tabloids would demonize her anyway, at least this way they're doing it in a way that benefits somepony.

Film

 * Bruce Wayne pulls one of these at the end of Batman Begins. Batman pulls an even bigger one at the end of The Dark Knight.
 * Harvey Dent manages a rare short-term version in The Dark Knight when he turns himself in as Batman, so that the Joker will come out of hiding and attack him, allowing the real Batman to do the same to the Joker. This works, and proves that Harvey's not Batman in the process, so that his reputation is restored.
 * In the movie version of Watchmen,

Literature

 * Jaime "The Kingslayer" Lannister in G. R. R. Martin`s A Song of Ice and Fire broke his vows as a member of the Kingsguard and killed King Aerys the Mad, For the entire series he is reviled and distrusted by nearly everyone he meets as a result, none of whom (except for Brienne, the only person he tells the story to,) know why he did it. In the end it seems he was too occupied with the political turmoil after the murder  to make a big deal out of it, and by the time things had calmed down it would have looked like he was just making excuses for the murder, which his pride would not allow.
 * Considering that the next king, Robert Baratheon, honored Jaime and allowed him to keep his position in the Kingsguard, it would seem that Robert knew (or guessed) the full story. The only other explanation is that he decided politics and tradition were more important than not having a known traitor as his personal body guard.
 * Robert kept him around firstly because he was just such a dang good fighter, and because it meant he could keep Tywin Lannister's best commander where he could see.
 * In Stephen Donaldson's Mordant's Need, King Joyce exemplifies this trope.
 * Explored from various angles in the original Ender's Game series, most explicitly with Admiral Lands of the Lusitania Fleet.
 * Jacen Solo in Legacy of the Force. Although in his case, he actually is being thoroughly evil, though his intentions are noble. Sort of.
 * And Corran Horn before him, who took the blame for the destruction of the garden paradise world of Ithor to spare the rest of Jedi Order.
 * The Dresden Files: In Turn Coat
 * In Five Hundred Years After (part of the Khaavren Romances series), Adron's last words are:
 * In the sixth book of the Harry Potter series, For the next year, he is reviled by all of his former friends and just about everybody in the wizarding world. At the end of the seventh book,
 * In the chronologically last of the Hornblower series, "Admiral Hornblower", Hornblower comes across
 * In No More Dead Dogs, by Gordon Korman, Wallace does this at the end when he takes the blame for sabotaging the school play in order to protect the real culprit,.
 * The plot of Bad Prince Charlie centers around a scheme to have the throne of Damask taken by an unpopular ruler so that the neighboring kingdom of Noile can be seen as saviors when they conquer it, at which point the people who engineered the scheme get paid off and the 'tyrant' (Who doesn't care for his home country anyway) gets banished. The strange thing is that Charlie manages to make himself unpopular by being competent.
 * God-Emperor Leto II of Dune sets up such a gambit. To preserve humanity, he becomes, well, a tyrant for three and a half millennia, but his plan also necessitates his demise. Now, a god can't simply die or commit suicide, because that would not stop the worship of him; so he arranges things so that his own people would revolt and topple him by force.
 * Successfully done, kinda, in The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach: The Emperor, being immortal, spends several centuries making himself unpleasant while mounting an effective rebellion against himself in a disguise. All because he wants to die, and knows that if he just suicided without utterly destroying his image as a god-like being, his empire, that he ruled for over 200 000 years, would never be free of him. He even arranges for his unwilling killer never to reveal the truth, and for his desacrated corpse to be exhibited as an object of shame.

Live Action TV
"Admiral Jarok: My daughter will grow up believing that her father is a traitor. But she will grow up."
 * In Sherlock, the plot of the season two finale is entirely about Moriarty's plan to discredit Sherlock Holmes.
 * In My Name Is Earl,
 * Doctor Kelso has done this a number of times on Scrubs. He's not a hero, but he uses the staff's hatred for him to make them more efficient.
 * Cox once said he was wrong about a drug addict (he said the addict wasn't still taking drugs when he was) so Elliot wouldn't have her optimism crushed.
 * Because Captain Sobel in Band of Brothers is such a difficult officer, Easy Company ends up going to war better trained. He's pretty much hated for it the rest of his life.
 * However, this is debatable as the real Sobel was an actual Jerkass.
 * In the books, though they still greatly dislike Sobel, the men of Easy Company give him the respect he's due for their training. They hate him, but they know that without him, they likely wouldn't have survived.
 * In the Star Trek the Next Generation episode "Sins of the Father", Worf takes dis-commendation and shame on his family name for the good of the Empire, even though he knows the real villain was the father of the politically powerful Duras.
 * And in the episode "The Defector", a Romulan Admiral defects to the Federation to prevent a Romulan-Federation war.


 * In Deep Space Nine, Worf refuses to follow the High Council in a war against the Cardassians. They strip him of the family honor he worked so hard to get back.
 * Wesley's reasoning for stealing Conner in Angel is that, though he's betraying his friends and they'll hate him forever, he's saving Conner and sparing them the burden of knowing that Angel's prophesied to kill his son. Unfortunately, this decision's made after several sleepless weeks, which is perhaps the only justification for the mixture of Idiot Ball and We Could Have Avoided All This misunderstandings that follow.
 * The Doctor  to kill the Minotaur in "The God Complex." Looks like he's going to.
 * The Seventh Doctor did the same thing to Ace in The Curse of Fenric, for similar reasons.
 * Perverted a bit in "Misfits" where Curtis needs break up with her ex without getting upset and triggering his time-warping guilt. Queue the awesome breakup montage.

Theatre
""No, of course, what really matters is the blame. Somebody to blame. Fine! If that's the thing you enjoy, placing the blame, if that's the aim, give me the blame!""
 * In Wicked, Elphaba tells Glinda that no one can ever know the truth that she was only rebelling against an tyrannical Wizard.
 * A big theme in Into the Woods. The witch neatly sums it up:

Video Games

 * from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is an example, although you don't find out until three-quarters of the way through the ending cutscene, long after you've won.
 * Particularly tragic since not only is there still a sacrifice but.
 * Yakuza has The Hero, Kazuma Kiryu, take the fall for his friend Akira at the beginning of the game.
 * One probably happens in the end of Metroid Fusion, when And what makes it worse,
 * In Final Fantasy III, the Dark Warriors are this trope combined with True Neutral. They've destroyed the overflow of light in the world to keep the balance, after which the world slowly started edging towards darkness instead. If they hadn't, the lack of balance would have caused the world to be destroyed - but in the meantime, they're known as the ones who ended the happiest era known on the planet.
 * Luckily, the majority of the people you talk to during the game actually seem to understand this.
 * No, the happiest era known on the planet was ended by the Flood of Light, which was rapidly destroying the world when the Dark Warriors showed up and saved the day. The Flood of Light was actually burning everything.
 * In Suikoden II,
 * In Mass Effect 2 Tali can pull one of these to exile herself from the fleet (and destroy her reputation) to save her father's.
 * Admiral Hackett basically tells Shepard that s/he's going to have to pull one . If you give a Renegade response at the end, he blatantly tells you that you're a convenient scapegoat.
 * This, combined with Gambit Pileup, aptly describe the (Anti-)Villains of Ar Tonelico 2. Your party even get to try to make people agree to your madman's scheme  Oh, and there is a nice song playing when you drop the thing, too!
 * Subverted by Jakuri, she never bothers with painting herself in good light. And she does Kick the Son of A Bitch several times in the story.
 * Touhou 8: Imperishable Night. Basically, your party cast a spell that makes the night never end in order to find the source of a potentially world-threatening magic that only appear at night. If they don't find the culprit at the time the sun is supposed to rise, the entire Gensokyo will gang-up on them. You Can't Get Away With Nothing either; the Barrier Maiden Reimu Hakurei and the guardian of humans Keine Kamishirasawa (oh, and Marisa) is out for your characters' head.
 * Subverted in that the common people don't know the protagonists were investigating the false moon, and believed they were investigating the unending night.
 * In Tales of the Abyss in order to guarantee everyone true freedom. Of course, this leads to a very negative opinion of him, as no one knows his true intentions.

Visual Novels

 * in A Profile goes out of her way to get Masayuki to distrust her, but he won't do it.

Webcomics

 * In Captain SNES, Alex tries one of these to convince the Sailor Scouts to get out of the line of fire when they're trying to help him fight the Sinistrals. It succeeds at the "Zero Approval" part, but fails at getting them to leave.
 * In Goblins, Big Ears the paladin scares away a crowd of innocent bystanders by pretending to be a mad monster.
 * Mike (aka The Pythagorean) in Something Positive claims that this is his superpower.

Western Animation

 * The Question makes an assassination attempt against Lex Luthor in Justice League Unlimited, in order to prevent a seemingly unavoidable future in which Superman kills Luthor and the Justice League Jumps Off the Slippery Slope. He reasons that, since he's already considered a nutty Conspiracy Theorist by the public, his arrest and fall from grace will leave the rest of the Justice League relatively untarnished. (Of course, the show never allows heroic characters to kill human beings unless it's a Bad Future or a parallel universe, so Luthor kicks his ass.)
 * In The Simpsons episode "Separate Vocations", some bad guidance counseling Bart and Lisa end up swapping roles, with Bart becoming the goodie-two-shoes and Lisa the surly rebel. Lisa ends up stealing all the Teachers' Edition textbooks (crippling the school, since they don't know the material otherwise), and Bart is the one to find the books in her locker. In order to keep Lisa from destroying her future by getting expelled, Bart takes the blame, his recent good relationship with Principal Skinner softening the punishment to 600 days' worth of detention.
 * In the Tale Spin episode "Plunder And Lightning",  pretends to betray Baloo, Rebecca, and Molly to gain Don Karnage's trust and allow them to escape the air pirates.

Real Life

 * Napoleon Bonaparte once tricked a man who'd challenged him to a duel to meet him on the palace grounds... Where he was promptly arrested by Napoleon's men. Napoleon did this because his devotion was to France itself, not to his own personal honor and glory.
 * Often a strategy employed by coaches or trainers of sports teams: the goal is to force teammates to put aside whatever personal differences they might have by subjecting them to a Training From Hell, thus bonding over their mutual hatred for the guy putting them through it. This strategy worked so well for Herb Brooks while training the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that they took the gold medal against very long odds, and to this day members of that team still speak of Brooks as the most brutal coach they've ever had.
 * This is also used in the military, except in the military going through hell continues as they do their job.

Other/Multiple

 * This has always been part of The Green Hornet; he uses his position as a supposed "bad guy" to get villains to trust him when he offers his services and to intimidate friends and foes alike (sometimes intending them to betray him!). This has remained consistent from the radio serials through the TV show and the 2011 movie.