Silent Scapegoat

"He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all."

- Isaiah

A good character willingly takes all blame for certain disastrous events, making everyone believe in his Face Heel Turn, then usually dies for his "sins", purportedly not clearing his name. It is usually much later (if at all) that the others realize that the Silent Scapegoat actually performed an elaborate Heroic Sacrifice or Zero-Approval Gambit.

Anyone who successfully pulls this off on a considerably large scale may be considered an Ubermensch. Often this is the result of Alternate Character Interpretation of real Villains. If the character did perform hideous crimes in addition to those for which he only took the fall, this doubles as Redemption Equals Death.

Subtrope of The Scapegoat and What You Are in the Dark.

Anime and Manga

 * does this in Record of Lodoss War when an allied tribe demands King Fahn's infant daughter as a sacrifice. Unable to refuse, King Fahn gives them his daughter and rescues the child and takes the blame as a renegade knight. When war finally erupts with that allied tribe, he simply heads to the battlefield and dies while people still sees him as a worthless knight.
 * herself from Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
 * Code Geass R2 ends with
 * In Kannazuki no Miko, Chikane Himemiya joins the Orochi, in order to get a shot at killing all of its henchmen and finally allow Himeko to save the world by killing her.
 * In Gundam Wing,
 * Note, however, that this is only made explicitly clear in the manga, where admits the whole thing to Heero during the final battle. The anime strongly implies it, but possibly not strongly enough since for years fans assumed the final arc only happened because it resembled Chars Counterattack.
 * Lord Genome in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann transforms from a valiant Spiral Warrior into a hated, oppressive ruler of the planet, wiping out entire human villages with his Beastmen legions. It is only after his death that the heroes learn that he did all that to preserve the human race, hoping that fear of him and his armies would keep humans in their holes. He made one critical mistake: hatred of him eventually grew stronger...
 * Higurashi no Naku Koro ni has Hanyuu, otherwise known as Oyashiro-sama, though it's not so much that she's just taking the blame as it is that Rika is the only one who can hear her voice.
 * In Naruto,  Oh and he made his beloved little brother hate him to make him stronger and, in the end, sacrificed his life to protect him.
 * Nico Robin was willing to betray the Strawhats and surrender to the World Government in order to get them safe passage, but the Strawhats discovered her plan and rescued her.
 * Also it looks as if
 * Vash the Stampede from Trigun often gets the blame for the horrendous disasters that seem to follow him around. It's not really his doing but he just takes the blame and keeps moving on.
 * In Pokémon Special, it is revealed that Norman covered for Ruby, who had inadvertently . And yes, the punishment involved eventually led to him dying, with Ruby not knowing the truth until the last moment.
 * In Durarara!!  takes the blame for   in order to get revenge on   who
 * In Great Teacher Onizuka, Class 2-4's former teacher, after he was . He resigned rather than to explain his innocence.
 * In Monster,  subverts this, albeit just barely.

Comic Books

 * The Hulk does this to thwart Omnibus's scheme to ignite World War III in the "Ghosts of the Future" storyline, though it's somewhat of a Subversion in that it's strongly implied that this act will start him on the road to becoming the genuinely and monstrously villainous Maestro.
 * This is essentially what Batman does at the end of The Dark Knight Returns.
 * In Astro City, the Silver Agent makes no effort to defend himself in his murder trial, and makes no appeal or request for clemency. Two minutes after he's executed, he saves the city via time travel. Later, it's discovered that the man he was convicted of murdering had staged the event using mind control and a body double. The Silver Agent's motives for silence are unclear.

Film

 * Batman also does it in the conclusion of The Dark Knight.
 * A smaller scale example is Hartigan allowing himself to go to jail for seven years for raping Nancy Calligan in Sin City in order to protect her and everyone he cares about from Roark's revenge. And even when he realises he needs to get out to protect her, he does it by publicly confessing to the rape and begging forgiveness.
 * At the end of the film version of Watchmen,
 * Towards the end of Mean Girls  all to bring about peace.

Live Action TV

 * In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Worf accepts the dishonor of being labeled the son of a traitor in order to spare the Klingon Empire the political turmoil that would follow if the true traitor (Duras' father) were named.
 * Another TNG example: Data is ordered to never reveal the existence of a xenophobic alien race (or risk the crew's destruction), while the crew has their memories erased. The crew then becomes aware of a missing day, with evidence that Data is lying about it, and possibly responsible. Picard tells Data that his silence is damning, and that by not coming forth, he risks being dismantled and studied to find what went wrong. Data is perfectly aware, and willing to accept this to protect the crew. (They eventually redo the memory wipe process a second time and fix all the clues, and carry on.)
 * The DS9 episode "Dax" revolves around one of Dax's previous hosts being accused of murder. Dax refuses to defend herself - turns out the previous host's alibi was that at the time of the murder, he was schtupping the victim's wife. Dax preferred to be found guilty rather than tarnish the wife's reputation.
 * In another episode, Kira is convinced that a Cardassian visitor is a war criminal. When pressed, he admits that he worked at a Cardassian-run labor camp on Bajor, but only as a clerk; however, Kira's digging reveals that he matches the description of Gul Darhe'el, the man who ran the camp. It turns out he really was a clerk, and that Gul Darhe'el had died in an accident. He considered himself a coward for not standing up against the atrocities committed at the camp. He then had a facial reconstruction in order to pass as Darhe'el. His plan was to get caught, protest his innocence for verisimilitude while Kira got progressively closer to what appeared to be the truth, and be executed, thereby allowing the Bajor people to believe that justice had been served.
 * In the Thirty Rock episode in which Liz became an executive, Jack explained to her that there was one guy everyone used as a scapegoat. After Liz inevitably made a mess of things, she blamed the scapegoat guy. He simply took it in stride.
 * Very nearly done with Daniel Jackson near the end of season five of Stargate SG-1. The Kelownans wanted to blame him for sabotaging their naquadaria bomb to avoid admitting a flaw in its design. He didn't seem to mind too much, but his friends did, and eventually Jonas Quinn told what really happened. Not that his people appreciated it much, or that it really did anything for Daniel, but it was a nice gesture.
 * In the Horatio Hornblower episode "Retribution",  Heroic Sacrifice takes this form.
 * House, of all people, does this in a Season One episode. A patient is suffering from a condition that causes symptoms of schizophrenia, and her 15-year-old son is forced to care for her. She calls Child Services to pick him up, because she can't bear being a burden on him any more. This happened after House had tricked him into revealing his true age. When she is back to normal at the end, her son believes House called Child Services, and tells him he'll never forgive him. House responds, in typical fashion, that he just wanted the kid out of his hair. IIRC, he then told them it was Dr. Cuddy who did it anyway, subverting the trope.

Literature

 * Jesus in The Bible. The page quote is a prophecy about him, after all.
 * And the original in Leviticus was an actual goat. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest would impute all the sins of the people on to the goat and send it to die in the wilderness.
 * Harry Potter: gets this for . The seventh book reveals that
 * Also from 's point of view, the fact that Draco disarmed him first. Meaning that  's death actually didn't help him at all, but   just sort of went with it.
 * God-Emperor Leto Atreides II in the Dune novels turned himself into a half-human, half-sandworm hybrid and oppressed the entire known universe for over three millenia, for the sake of breeding a human who will be unpredictable even by a Kwisatz Haderach.
 * All Three Versions of Judas by Jorge Luis Borges theorize that Judas Iscariot was a Silent Scapegoat in different ways.
 * In Turn Coat allows everyone to  because.
 * In the last book of the Sign Of Seven trilogy by Nora Roberts, one of the main character's father is a reformed alcoholic/abusive father. (As in, now that he's not drunk, he's truly repentant that he used to beat his son.) Through the trilogy, his son rejects any and all of his father's attempts for a reconciliation or forgiveness, until the end when
 * Similar to the Real Life example below, Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short story "The Martyr" concerns a child named Lorenzo who is adopted by Jesuits after showing up on their doorstep and then cast out after being accused of impregnating a local woman. Lorenzo is mortally wounded saving his alleged daughter, after which the woman confesses he's not really the father. This is cemented by the revelation that the dying Lorenzo is a woman.

Music

 * "Everything's my fault/I'll take all the blame"

Theater

 * At the end of Wicked, Elphaba makes Glinda promise not to clear her name and to take charge in Oz, allowing her to disappear.

Video Games

 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Snake Eater: The Boss, especially with what happens in the fourth and final game in the series. And that game reveals that this is essentially the motive of both Big Boss and Revolver Ocelot for their own evil deeds in the other games. It works.
 * Sialeeds from Suikoden V. Upon realizing that her side is winning the battle a little too efficiently, Sialeeds fakes a defection to the bad guys and manipulates the very course of the war to ensure that the nobles on both sides of the struggle die. That way, when things are over the nation (and her niece and nephew) can have a fresh start free from their corruption. Sialeeds herself will die and be remembered only as a traitor, this ensuring that her actions aren't associated with the new government.
 * Georg Prime also fits this trope. He kills the previous Queen and fully accepts the blame for this act, sparing the queendom from the knowledge that the Sun Rune was driving her mad, and that (in a fit of rage) she came close to destroying the entire country with the Rune's power. Making matters worse, her husband actually ASKED him to do this, just in case she ever lost control and became dangerous. She did.
 * Minor correction: Georg was there as a backup in case Ferid (the queen's husband) was unable to do the deed himself  It should also be known that the queen herself was (probably) aware of this plan; both she and her husband knew that it was only a matter of time before the Sun rune overwhelmed her mind, and she would become a danger to all once it did.
 * Umineko no Naku Koro ni, is revealed to be this, along with a Stealth Mentor,, and the seventh arc heavily implies  to be one- keep in mind, however, that.
 * In Monster Rancher 4, Phayne took the blame for  stealing and reading a book of forbidden techniques. This leads to the main plot of the game, as he gets expelled from the academy and winds up finding somebody else willing to let him start a ranch... and sows the seeds for.
 * In In Famous 2 Good Ending, Cole was planning on being this after he sacrificed himself to kill The Beast. However people knew of his sacrifice and made him the Patron Saint of New Maris.
 * In In Famous 2 Good Ending, Cole was planning on being this after he sacrificed himself to kill The Beast. However people knew of his sacrifice and made him the Patron Saint of New Maris.

Web Comics

 * In Gunnerkrigg Court,  refused to explain why they  Presumably they wanted to spare Annie the Awful Truth:

Western Animation

 * In an episode of Justice League Unlimited, the Question found records of an alternate universe Superman that killed "his" Lex Luthor and then Jumped Off The Slippery Slope to become a Knight Templar. Seeing events in his own universe heading in the same direction, he seeks to kill "our" Lex Luthor first so Superman's morals won't be compromised, as he already has a reputation for being a bit of a nutball.

Real Life

 * There was a monk that stayed in a tavern (let's not dwell on that). The innkeeper's daughter became pregnant and said the monk did it. The monk was banished from the monastery and lived as a beggar at its gates for a while and then was reaccepted in the monastery at the lowest rank and had to do the tasks nobody else wanted to do. When the monk died of old age and they were preparing him for the funeral, they discovered the monk was a woman. She had been entered in the monastery under a false identity by her father and had kept the secret even though she could have easily proven her innocence (not that it would help her much, being kicked out of the monastery).
 * She gets mentioned in Cracked.com as the 4th Biggest Badass who lived as the opposite sex.