Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:583-11.png|130px|thumbnail|link= Naruto|Those headbands are of the countries he infiltrated under his ''first'' employer. His espionage career gets more complicated after this<ref>also his career is not revealed to the audience in chronological order. And by "after" we meant chronologically, not the order we discover things about him.</ref>]]

There's [[The Mole]], who's a villain pretending to work for the good guys. And the [[Reverse Mole]], which is the same but reversed. You put them together, and you get the [[Double Agent]], who's working for either the villain or the hero, and acts as a fake mole for the other.

* {{spoiler|Tsuchimikado Motoharu}} from ''[[To Aru Majutsu no Index]]'' is {{spoiler|the only magician-esper hybrid}} and is constantly switching between working for Aleister Crowley (and Academy City's dark side) and Necessarius. It's even hinted that he works for even more covert organizations, but [[Reliable Traitor|he's being let off the hook]] for the time being.

* From [[Naruto]] we have Kabuto Yakushi. First, he disguised himself as a Leaf ninja for at least four years, only to reveal he's working for Orochimaru, who himself does not entirely trust him. Later we discover he was a spy for Sasori in Orochimaru's organization, but Orochimaru had long since removed that brainwashing and made him a double agent to keep tabs on the Akatsuki. We also find out that Orochimaru used him as a spy against Sasori and his organization (Akatsuki) ''before'' Sasori brainwashed Kabuto. After the apparent death of Orochimaru, Kabuto went rogue, with various reactions to the loss of Orochimaru from shock to joy. Nowadays, he's working [[Big Bad Duumvirate|with]] Tobi, but blackmailed him and is pretty much in charge, depending on their various trump cards. Later we learned he was a spy for Konoha (which he later spys on for Orochimaru) and infiltrated numerous countries on its behalf. However Konoha stopped trusting him resulting in him having a grudge again Konoha. Confused yet?

== Comic Books ==

* The [[Transformers Generation 1|Autobot Punch/Counterpunch]] was originally portrayed as a [[Double Agent]] (an Autobot who pretended to be a Mole for the Decepticons). Later interpretations of the character sometimes depict him as a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent, often due to prolonged effects of [[Becoming the Mask]].

* The second season of ''[[Sleeper (Comic Book)|Sleeper]]'' has {{spoiler|Holden}} doing this through the entire run.

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'' Blaise Zabini is a ''[[Up to Eleven|quintuple]]'' agent. Who thinks he's a quadruple agent. In a game with three sides. Also he would have been a sextuple agent if he could find anyone else to sell out to.

== Film ==

* Openly an issue with Captain Jack Sparrow in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''. It's nearly impossible to do a write up of his betraying and side-switching first three films because it's NEVER really made clear exactly who he's helping, who he's fucking over, or even why he's doing it (and, at some points, he doesn't seem to be able to keep track of it himself).

* Arguably, Anakin Skywalker as Darth Vader becomes this in ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]''. After becoming Darth Vader under Palpatine, a.k.a Darth Sideous, he goes on two missions: his first to lead the extermination of the Jedi on Coruscant who don't know he's a Sith. Secondly, in his public guise, Palpatine rules the Republic, but as Darth Sideous, he controls the Separatists. He tells the Separatists he's sending his new apprentice to meet them, who promptly kills them all as they wonder why, and at the same time, announces to the Republic that he's dispatched someone to take down the Separatists, after which he announces beginning of the Empire. Anakin then postulates to Padme that he could kill Palpatine and take over the Empire himself.

== Literature ==

* Severus Snape in ''[[Harry Potter]]'', who is working for {{spoiler|Lily}} by working for {{spoiler|Dumbledore}} by pretending to work for {{spoiler|Voldemort}} by pretending to work for {{spoiler|Dumbledore}}. As a testament to JK's writing ability, this is easier to follow than it sounds.

* In ''[[Dune]]'', Yueh came pretty close, what with his being mentally conditioned at the Imperial Medical School to be unable to harm another person, and then secretly captured along with his wife by the Harkonnen Family and re-brainwashed into an assassin, then retained by the Atredies Family on the grounds of his original, supposedly unbreakable conditioning, eventually betraying them to the Harkonnens on the promise of being reunited with his wife but secretly resisting their brainwashing and at the last minute helping the Duke's son and her mother escape, then arming the captured Duke Atredies with a concealed suicide weapon he can use to kill the Baron Harkonnen, then pretending to still be loyal to Harkonnen and asking to be reunited with his wife at which point Harkonnen tells him she is dead and kills him. More of a very unstable double agent, but then this all happens in something like the first three chapters of the book.

* ''[[X Wing Series]]'': Gara Petothel, though not intentionally, at least at first. At first she intended to be [[The Mole]]; later she [[Becoming the Mask|became the mask]]. Later still she was discovered and had to go back to her old side - but worked to sabotage it.

* One of these is the main character of [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''Dinosaur Beach'', leading to multiple levels of [[Tomato Surprise]] as he betrays one faction or another. His ultimate allegiance turns out to be to {{spoiler|''none'' of the main factions--all of them wished to "fix" the timestream by eliminating time travelers after their own time period, but none were willing to accept that their own time travel was part of the problem. He set everything up to retroactively prevent the invention of time travel, [[Omnicidal Neutral|at the cost of the existence of everyone who was born after its invention]].}}

* The ''[[Illuminatus]]'' novels have Tobias Knight, described as the only quintuple agent in the history of espionage. If this troper remembers correctly he was working for the CIA, KGB, FBI, Illuminati and the Discordians all at the same time, and had reached the point where he was participating in conspiracy for its own sake.

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Grimm (TV)|Grimm]]'' has Captain Renard, a member of a so-far unknown Wesen royal family. Every single faction he has contacted so far has assumed he's working for some other side. And his actions really aren't helping us decide either.

* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''; So, does [[Mysterious Past|Garak]] support the [[The Government|Detappa Council]]? The [[State Sec|Obsidian Order]]? The [[The Pentagon|Central Command]]? The [[La Résistance|Dissident Movement]]? The [[The Federation|Federation]]? [[The Spymaster|Enabran Tain]]? [[It's All About Me|Himself]]? Have fun trying to figure it out because none of the characters in-universe can! {{spoiler|His [[Patriotic Fervour|true loyalty]] seems to be to Cardassia itself and that means his alliances can shift all over the place depending on who he feels has Cardassia's best interests at heart.}}

== Newspaper Comics ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow]]'' will sometime [[Stealth Pun|flirt]] with this. The [[Mole in Charge|mayor]] of the village can secretly be a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]], but more precisely a [[Food Chain of Evil|white werewolf]], as well as the [[Interspecies Romance|lover]] of the [[Magical Flutist|pied piper]]. It works better if there are many players.

* ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]] Impossible'' has the triple agent card. It allows you to claim allegiance to three nations (out of the four available) at the same time. There's also the [[Sidekick]] Dusty McRonin, the man of too many allegiances.

== Toys ==

* ''[[Bionicle]]'' has a rather simple one, as these things go: Roodaka worked for both the Brotherhood of Makuta and the Dark Hunters, but she played them off of each other and her true allegiance is to herself. Eventually both sides found out and started targeting her; at which point a third faction, the Order of Mata Nui, caught her and made her a [[Boxed Crook]].

== Video Games ==

** For more on this topic, see [[Team Fortress 2/WMG|the game's Wild Mass Guessing page]].

* Revolver Ocelot in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' has, at various points in the series, apparently been working for the CIA, NSA, KGB, GRU, Colonel Volgin, FOXHOUND, rogue FOXHOUND, Colonel Gurlukuvich, Solidus Snake and the Patriots. In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', we learn that {{spoiler|he was truly faithful to Big Boss, and the entire ''Solid'' series was a plot by him to recover Naked Snake's remains}}.

* In ''[[Star Wars: The Old Republic]]'' Imperial characters have several opportunities to do this and decide on the fly whose side you're actually on, if anyone's. One of the most notable cases is act 2 in Imperial Agent's story, where you're an undercover agent for both the Imperial and Republic intelligences {{spoiler|though not entirely by choice for the Republic, since they've found the keyword to set off your brainwashing (originally put in place by Imperials at the command of the Sith) which allows them to give orders you cannot disobey}}.

* The Lost Archive DLC in [[Assassin's Creed: Revelations]] reveals {{spoiler|Lucy to be one}}.

== Web Comics ==

** On at least [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-09-29 one] occasion they successfully managed to get paid ''five'' times.

** They get paid four times in ''The Body Politic'', starting [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-07-15 here]. They get paid twice for stealing Xinchub's corpse, once for ''preventing'' the same theft, and once more for cloning a copy.

== Western Animation ==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Espionage Tropes]]

[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]