Deliberately Bad Example: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:deadpool_5561.jpg|link=Marvel Universe|frame|You should see what [[Deadpool]] does to [[media:deadpool_little_old_lady_7148.jpg|little old ladies]]...]]

 

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?

 

This a sub-trope of the [[Foil]]. Compare the more [[Public Service Announcement|PSA]]-oriented version of this character-as-a-device, the [[Anti Role Model]], where the character's purpose is to be an example of what the people in the ''audience'' aren't supposed to do.

 

== [[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!

* In Sabatini's novel about the pirate Peter Blood, Isterling and l'Evaser are both portrayed as [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]] so that Blood can retain the image of a noble pirate.

* 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.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==