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Deliberately Bad Example: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
Sometimes, especially when writing a story or a script about a highly unusual situation, you find that you've just loaded up your protagonist or some other fairly important character with lots of potentially [[Unfortunate Implications]]. Alas, trying to have your character [[I Can Explain|explain to everybody]] why this is [[Not What It Looks Like]] is likely to be a real show-stopper, and mostly just makes your readers/viewers even more suspicious. What can you do?
Fortunately, there's an
There are lots of variants. For example, rather than the protagonist, the Deliberately Bad Example may be serving as the backdrop to an important secondary character. Pointing out the differences or similarities between the behavior of the two characters may also serve to raise suspicions rather than allay them. (If the [[Jerkass]] doesn't behave like the [[Complete Monster]], how do we know he isn't really a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|closeted warm-and-fuzzy type]]? If he does, how do we know he isn't [[The Mole]]?)
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Mori Kouji and Toufukuji from ''[[I My Me! Strawberry Eggs]]'', of course. See how these guys behave? Amawa Hibiki is nothing like them!
* ''[[Love Hina]]''{{'}}s Shirai and Haitani are definitely this to Keitaro, though all the girls in the dormitory fail to see the difference.
* Odagiri from ''[[Koi Kaze]]'': he's the raving pervert with a fetish for high school girls who's pining away for a younger sister, not Koshiro.
* Parodied and [[Lampshaded]] with the character Matagu from ''[[Please Teacher!]]'': although he's definitely [[Hot for Teacher]] and has always wanted to marry a space alien, he's not really necessary. It's already pretty well established from the beginning that the protagonist Kei is nothing like him
* ''[[S-Cry-ed]]'' is practically littered with examples. Many of Ryuhou's associates from HOLY serve to emphasize that he really does believe in what he's doing as a [[Knight Templar]] by showing what people with less noble motives might do with their powers. The way a number of Kazuma's fellow alter-users behave also indicates that his noble behavior as the [[Anti-Hero]] is more the exception than the rule out where he lives.
* From the [[Tournament Arc]] in ''[[Fairy Tail]]'', Sabertooth seems to be one of the bad guys... until you see [[Evil Counterpart|Raven Tail]]. Then you realize that Sabertooth is just a case of [[Good Is Not Nice]].
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* ''[[Deadpool]]'' (pictured above) is this for a ''lot'' of characters in the ''[[Marvel Universe]]''.
* Helping ''[[Spider-Man]]'' deal with the [[Axe Crazy]] mass-murdering symbiote Carnage earned sometime [[Arch Nemesis]] Venom a measure of respect as an [[Anti-Hero]] from both the readers and Spider-Man himself.
== [[Comic Strips]] ==▼
* Goofus, of the "Goofus & Gallant" cartoons so emblematic of the magazine they appeared in, ''[[Highlights for Children]]''. To be fair his actions are often fairly inoffensive and only marginally objectionable, and are presented solely to make Gallant's more prissy behavior seem that much more commendable by contrast. (Unlike, say, the parody in the page image.)▼
== [[Film]] ==
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Dolores Umbridge from the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' novels. If Severus Snape really were a [[Complete Monster]], this is who he'd be.
* In Sabatini's novel about the pirate Peter Blood, Isterling and l'Evaser are both portrayed as [[Complete Monster
* In [[Alexander Pushkin]]'s "Captain's Daughter" the author made use of one of these to avoid censorship: The hero Grinev is friends with the anti-Czarist rebel Pugachev, yet remains a positive character, which could have led to the book being banned in Czarist Russia. So Pushkin introduced Shwabrin, a spineless, unscrupulous traitor who sells out everybody; in comparison to this, the hero seems quite loyal and patriotic.
▲* Goofus, of the "Goofus & Gallant" cartoons so emblematic of the magazine they appeared in, ''[[Highlights for Children]]''. To be fair his actions are often fairly inoffensive and only marginally objectionable, and are presented solely to make Gallant's more prissy behavior seem that much more commendable by contrast. (Unlike, say, the parody in the page image.)
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Wait Till Your Father Gets Home]]'' has Ralph playing this as a neighbor to Harry Boyle; Ralph is a paranoid far-right militia type the level-headed conservative Harry is the first to call a nutcase.
* ''[[Recess]]'' has Principal Prickly and Dr. Phillium Benedict. While Principal Prickly may seem like he rules the school with an iron fist, deep down he actually does care for the children at his school. The reason he became principal was because he tried to stop Benedict from abolishing Recess. Benedict is only concerned with increasing test scores, and eventually decided that he was going to destroy summer vacation, because summer vacation is essentially the biggest recess of them all.
{{reflist}}
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