Bad Samaritan: Difference between revisions

And then there are these guys.

 

 

This is when a villain [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|wears a mask of altruism]] and pretends that their goal is to help unfortunate, needy characters. They will befriend and offer them their assistance to win them over, [[The Chessmaster|secretly using them as pawns in their scheme]]. The good guys usually don't catch on until it is way, way too late to do anything about it and the villain has just put the final touches on the plot, revealing that the "help" was merely part of their evil plan all along.

* [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[Misery]]'' (as well as the film version) is about a writer who is rescued from a car crash during a blizzard by a woman who claims to be his number one fan. It becomes increasingly clear that she is psychotic and won't let him leave.

* A milder version appears in ''[[Oliver Twist]]''. Fagin takes in homeless street urchins, giving them shelter and food and a sense of family. He also turns them into a band of criminals, and if they don't earn enough money, they are beaten and tossed out.

* The man who rents out a room to Winston and Julia in ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' ends up turning them in.

* Happens pretty much every time a random stranger is kind to the heroes in the ''[[Percy Jackson]]'' series: Auntie Em/Medusa, [[Lotus Eater Machine|The Lotus Hotel]], Procrustes (as mentioned below), Circe, Geryon... The fact that the heroes keep falling for it is lampshaded at one point; they know it's stupid, but they're so exhausted and battered from their previous encounters that they can hardly think straight.

** This eventually leads Percy to be distrustful of Hestia, who was genuinely a [[Good Samaritan]]

* In ''[[Blood Memories]]'', the main character is a vampire who has a subtle, uncontrollable psychic ability that makes other people think she needs to be taken care of. As a result, she often preys on Bad Samaritans.

* In ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]'' Roger Chillingsworth volunteers to live with Dimmsdale so that he can be close to him and help treat his mysterious illness. The two appear to be very close friends, Chillingsworth is always at Dimmsdale's side, tending to him and listening to his woes...too bad he's actually there to psychologically torture Dimmsdale and is actually making him sicker.

 

* In the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "Anne" there's a street preacher who is "helping" the homeless and runaway kids by sending them to a Hell dimension where time runs much faster than it does on Earth. There, they are worked as slaves until they die of old age.

** Also, serial killer-preacher [[The Dragon|Caleb]] first starts out as this. He "rescues" Shannon, one of the Potential Slayers, from the Bringers, only to then brand her, stab her, and toss her from a moving truck, all as a message to Buffy.

* A mild version of this was the basis of the short lived British comedy series ''[[Mr Charity]]''. The [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]], Graham Templeton, was the leader of a charity organization, yet utterly unconcerned with helping others, his only goal being to become the next Bob Geldof in terms of fame and possibly a knighthood. Yet, it ''was'' a very [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|cynical show.]]

* In the ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' episode "Reasonable Doubt", it is revealed that the immortal Tarsis finds children who are destined to become immortal, raises them as his own children, then kills them when they are in their early 20s to activate their immortality. He then uses them as accomplices to his crimes and, when he finally grows tired of them, he takes their heads.

* An episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' featured a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of weaker-willed women by claiming to help them build up their self-esteem. All is fine until the women actually begin showing independance which she sees as rejection, and then their new friend [[Misery|takes them to her house, breaks their legs with a hammer]] and drowns them.

* While the people he helps out are usually all morally evil in their own ways, the BBC's ''[[Sherlock]]'' version of Moriarty is a "consulting criminal," who is directly described as a "Bad Samaritan" by Sherlock himself.

 

** This is also favored by cults. Pick someone who's emotionally vulnerable, shower him/her with love and they're likely to stick around for the [[Brainwashing|lectures and rituals]].

*** One famous example of this happening to someone would be [[Toshimitsu Deyama]], vocalist of [[X Japan]], who was led into a cult with precisely this modus operandi: approached by someone who claimed to love him (and married him) during a very low period in his life when he was facing severe emotional stress and pain, getting him to among other things leave his family, hate his best friend and love of his life, leave his band, sue his own brother, recruit other members, lash out at critics of the cult, and live off of nothing while contributing his wages to her and the cult leader with whom she lived for 10 years.

* A real-life example of this was widely broadcast during the London riots. Two men initially seemed to be helping an injured student (Ashraf Rossli) but were actually using the opportunity to go through his backpack. [[Laser-Guided Karma|The incident was caught on CCTV and the two men were later jailed.]]

* Charles Sobhraj