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Deliberately Bad Example: Difference between revisions
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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 excellent—if not perfect—solution to your problems: the '''Deliberately Bad Example'''. The Deliberately Bad Example is everything your morally wholesome and upstanding protagonist is not. If you present this depraved buffoon's perversity comically enough, you won't have to say anything about your protagonist's motives at all. Your viewers will understand that since your protagonist is not at all like this Deliberately Bad Example, he must
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
* ''[[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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