The Presents Were Never From Santa

"Just because some court-appointed hillbilly president started taking orders from Jesus, or the Easter Bunny, or some other make-believe play-friend of his".

—Roxy, explaining why the whole world is getting boiled alive, God Bless America

Bob thinks he has someone really special helping him. A guardian angel, a fairy godmother, the president of the United States, a wise alien, something like that. This fake or imaginary benefactor (Faux Empowering Entity) gives Bob (Faux Empowered Person) something that makes him feel special and chosen.

Consequentially, Bob may consider his own actions justified based on having the benefactor's blessing (or acting as per her advice or direct order). However, Bob is totally wrong. And the results are likely to be disastrous, as Bob builds his life on a lie and maybe drags others into the mess.

For this trope to be played straight, it has to be revealed (to the audience) that Bob's benefactor is not legitimate.

Compare and Contrast Windmill Political: While a Windmill is a threat that isn't really a threat, this trope features a kind of help that ultimately isn't helpful. See also Scam Religion, for when Bob tries to get others to believe in his nonsense. The Magic Feather can be the token of Bob's specialness, a gift from his benefactor that symbolizes Bob's not so real powers. For the real thing, contrast Enigmatic Empowering Entity in general as well as specific characters such as Santa Claus or The Chooser of the One.

Examples of The Presents Were Never From Santa include:

Anime & Manga

Keroro Gunsou: In one story Tamama pretends to be a god (angel in the Funimation English dub) after being caught by a boy practising soccer. While he did help the boy become more confident he gave some rather strange advice, especially in the manga and English dub, not to mention teaching the boy a soccer kick fueled by resentment.
Kyoko of Skip Beat!! still believes she got her purple worry stone from a fairy prince named Corn, which is very important to her. The pretty blond boy in question was ten at the time, and she was six; he presumably thought it was harmless to play along with such a ridiculously cute little girl. Now that Hizuri Kuon has grown up and become Tsuruga Ren, the ethical issues involved in his convoluted lies have become really ridiculous. Incredibly, none of it has actually bitten yet.
- Kyoko, in a mini version of this, has become Ren's gag Obi Wan in costume as a rooster named Bou. His relationship with the rooster has evolved oddly and with no apparent introspection on his part over the course of the series, although he seems to think it's a guy older than himself. Since his reaction when this comes out will be primarily embarrassment (and amazement at how oblivious she can be, given Bou's been giving him advice about seducing the teenage girl he loves without Kyoko ever suspecting it's her), it's much easier to look forward to than the collapse of Ren's web of lies. It should be hilarious.
When a cute little cabbit-like creature offers to make you a magical girl in exchange for fulfilling your fondest wish, don't trust him.
In the world of Slayers, there are plenty of real, actual demons, many of whom are openly seeking humans with whom to make an infernal pact with. So it's kind of impressive, in a retarded kind of way, that the Goldfish Poop Gang Harmless Villain manages to be a fervent worshipper of a demon who apparently doesn't actually exist.
Gil Graham from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's has provided Hayate with a home and allowance, even paying for hospital funds. Turns out that this is his gambit to make Hayate the master of the Book of Darkness, allowing him to seal the Book of Darkness away.
Light Yagami of Death Note briefly wonders why he was given a book that could kill anybody. When Ryuk, the being who slipped him the Death Note, tells him that 'I did it because I was bored. There's nothing special about you', he decides fate gave him the Death Note. This tells you something about his motivation.
- Then again, Ryuk himself muses that he never expected what amounted to a prank to have such a massive impact on the world, and that it was a one in a million chance that the person who found the book had both a grandiose ambition for it and the intellect to achieve it. Even the Hero Antagonist says that a normal person would never have done with it what Light did, even if they still chose to kill with it (though, to his mind, that just means Light is crazy) and in the one-chapter sequel the owner of another Death Note ends up being just a pale imitation of Light. So, perhaps, Light is on to something....

Comic Books

In Green Lantern the False Guardians who empowered G'nort and others to intentionally discredit the Green Lantern Corps fill this role.
- Arguably, "The Guardians of the Universe" have a hint of this as well, acting as an Empowering Entity to the Corps but with their qualifications sometimes called into question. Unlike most, it's not out of manipulation, misunderstanding, or madness, but arrogance; consider for a moment that they gave themselves their title. While they mean well, they generally refuse to show any hint of humility or emotion. They also have a tendency to cover up things they feel Man Was Not Meant to Know (Parallax, the massacre of sector 666, Agent Orange, the Blackest Night prophecy, the White Entity), and those coverups have an equal tendency to come back and bite them in the rear.
In Chick Tracts, false gods and other devils often fill the FEE role, offering people what the victims already have or what the devils can't provide. Especially God-as-worshipped-by-catholics-and-muslims gets portrayed this way a lot. However, humans are fully capable of being FEP without any help from demons. The page illustration is from a tract where a kid jumps off the slippery slope and becomes a serial killer from finding out Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny aren't real.
In Fables, Cinderella is quite disillusioned with the fairy godmother, who did set her up with that jerk "Prince Charming" in spite of already knowing about his trail of failed marriages.
In Cinderella's Sister, the "fairy godmother" is all about hurting young women's self esteem so that they will desire more expensive clothes, cosmetic surgery etc. And she's not a real person either, merely an advertisement mascot.
In the Nighthawk mini-series in the Marvel Universe, Nighthawk is in a coma and has a vision of an angel that facilitates his healing and bestows on him a "second sight", which enables him to see criminal acts before they are committed. In return, he must punish the would-be criminals. Once healed, Richmond becomes Nighthawk once again and fights crime until forced into a confrontation with Daredevil, whom he kills. The "angel" then reveals itself to be the demon Mephisto, who transports Nighthawk and Daredevil's corpse to Hell, intending to claim Daredevil's soul.
An issue of Madman had a powerful being claim to be God and empower an IRA agent who sought redemption. This was all a ruse in order to create an avatar to kill the title character. Once the agent realized Madman was innocent and that he was trying to kill an innocent man he killed himself.

Films -- Live Action

Discussed in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The peasant Dennis didn't vote for King Arthur, so why should he accept King Arthur's rule? Because some strange woman lying in a pond distributed a sword? Or is it truly because Arthur will have him silenced if he don't pretend to go along with that logic? Come see the violence inherent in the system! ("Help, help, I'm being repressed!") (And yes, several sections of the trope description were lifted from this movie).
In A Beautiful Mind, John Nash is getting increasingly erratic orders from the government agent who made him a Knight in Shining Armor against the evil communist conspiracy. The questgiver is actually a delusion, caused by John's schizophrenia.
In The Exorcism of Emily Rose, an angel gives the titular character blessings and tactical updates in her war against the devil. While psychiatry (in the movie as well as in Real Life) is convinced that Emily was insane and that it was wrong of her priest to advise her to stop taking her medication, the movie makes it ambiguous whether the battle was all a matter of insanity (making the angel a Faux Empowering Entity who helped Emily destroy herself) or a real battle between spiritual forces (making the angel a Enigmatic Empowering Entity who helped Emily defeat the devil and move on to a better place).
- Even if she was insane, the movie indicates that maybe her faith was more important anyway. Emily herself was positioned to play this role for people looking for some confirmation of spirituality in the modern world; the movie suggests that if her faith had this positive effect on the world, maybe that was more important and the sacrifice she made would still mean something even she was actually crazy.
In Kung Fu Hustle, a street bum sells Sing an overpriced kung-fu manual in a flashback, which sees our protagonist down the road of misery and failure. The bum appears at the end of the film, after Sing has defeated the Axe Gang and the Beast, trying to sell an array of kung-fu manuals to another unsuspecting kid. Possibly subverted since the manual did contain a legendary martial arts technique.
In Fiddler on the Roof, a prophetic dream makes Golde accept that her daughter will marry a poor tailor instead of a rich butcher. Good for the daughter, and also for the husband (who lied about the supernatural vision in order to dodge the wrath of his wife) - but clearly against Golde's true wishes.

Literature

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wizard is ultimately proven to be a fraud, giving out Magic Feathers as if they were real gifts. (However, the gifts are symbolic. Thus they can be considered valid in the film version, which was All Just a Dream.) In the novels, the Wizard later learns real magic that nonetheless never has as big an effect on characters or the story as those three symbolic gifts he gave in the first book.
In The Bible, Satan arguably fills this role as he's tempting Jesus with empty/meaningless promises in the desert.
Pip from Great Expectations believes his sudden endowment to be from Mrs. Havisham to groom him into a proper husband for her ward, Estella. He's quite shocked to find otherwise.
- Played With because he knows for a fact that he does have an anonymous benefactor, it's just his guess is incorrect; it's actually the convict he helped at the beginning of the book.
In the Nightside series, the Removal Man believes his power was granted to him by God, and that he is using it to do God's work. He is Driven to Suicide when John Taylor reveals who has actually been backing his power, and for what reason.
Don Quixote: Don Quixote meets a rascally innkeeper who he thinks he is a Castellan (a castle warden) and asks him for Knighting. Ironically, in real life, to be knighted as a joke would have disbled Don Quixote to become a real Knight by the rules of the Siete Partidas of Alphonso X the Wise.

Live Action TV

Played for maximum tragedy & angst in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Course Oblivion. The crew put their trust in a shapeshifting alien who they believe to be the Star Fleet Captain Kathryn Janeway. This creature does believe itself to be Janeway, and it's trying to keep her crew safe and get them home, just like the real Janeway would. Too bad for the crew that she's not a real Star Fleet officer, and has a really flawed understanding of what is "safe" and what is "home".

Music

In Clawfinger's song "God is dead," a unspecified audience is accused of killing each other on behalf of a deity they dreamed up in their own nightmares, the legitimacy of their holy wars against each other reduced to self-absorbed lunacy. Mistaking one's own fantasies for the voice of God might explain how some people who believe in the same God also believe that he want them to kill each other in his name.
In Blutengels song "No God"... "There's a god in your life, / But he is not what you need. / He can't hear you when you call. / He can't help you when you cry. / [...] / Wake up and face reality, realize there is no god. / Wake up open your eyes, / No paradise on the other side!"

Puppet Shows

Madame Trashheap started out as a FEE in the early episodes of Fraggle Rock, doling out simple adages that the Fraggles interpreted as wisdom and giving away useless items claiming they were magical but were really magic feathers. Early on, she began to develop true oracular powers, often bordering on the omniscient, and could even do real magic (like the time she made all the radishes disappear).

Tabletop Games

Scarred Lands: One of the lesser Chaotic Evil gods is fake. The Chaotic Evil overgod killed but then pretended to make him a God so that his followers would pray to the overgod who slayed him while believing that it is him they serve. Why? For the Evulz, of course. And all the poor minions get for their faithful service is the horrors of Hell. Note that this isn't a Scam Religion: It is a real Religion of Evil that really worship an evil God - it's just that they have been deceived regarding which evil God hears their prayers!

Video Games

In the Halo games, the Covenant, who think they are doing the will of the Forerunners, are trying to activate the ringworlds because they believe that will elevate them to a new plane of existence just like their "gods" did. What they don't realize is that the Forerunners used the rings to kill themselves instead and take the Flood with them.
In computer RPGs and MMORPGs, badly written questgivers act as Strange Pond Women: Their excuses for giving magical items to the heroes are flimsy at best, and the items gets replaced soon enough anyway. When the character gets a medal or a title, it's almost always cheapened by the fact that every single character can be "the one and only" who did that particular feat of heroism.
- A noteworthy World of Warcraft example is the wise old ogre who crowns the character king or Queen of Ogri'La. Since the quest is a group quest and was quite popular back in its days, it rarely took long until a new batch of five new kings & queens was publicly announced by the same old ogre.
  - A daily quest at the Argent Tournament involves the player obtaining a sword from a mysterious maiden by either giving her some flowers, thawing the ice freezing her, or giving her a kiss to release her curse, depending on which one was up for the day. While she's at it, she tries to make you feel special by complaining about how many centuries she has been waiting for you or whatever. So far so good. However, it does seem less genuine when you have been waiting in line to save her and you heard her say the same thing to the three guys before you.
- Lampshaded in City of Heroes, where all villain characters are apparently potential "Chosen Ones" in some kind of prophecy based around the main villain. And in a notable Deconstruction, the epic archetypes have an alternate introduction, where they hack into Arachnos's systems and mark themselves as one of the Chosen Ones.
  - Or something else, as later on in the epic storyline you delete the last copies of the list to erase some of your tracks and see the re-divined list. Your name's on it.
Uncle Rupee in Freshly-Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.
Lady Yunalesca in Final Fantasy X filled a role similar to this. For a thousand years she assisted summoners with the pen-ultimate step of their pilgrimage to obtain the Final Summon by turning one of their guardians into it. Turns out, this is all a vicious, endless cycle of death destruction (and she knew it) and that her authority comes from her dad being the Big Bad that controls and recreates the monstrous Sin these summoners sought to destroy once and for all. Fortunately, the heroes reject her offer to "help" them, destroy her to end the cycle of pointless sacrifice, and Take a Third Option instead.
In the Neverwinter Nights expansion Hordes of the Underdark, the player character can redeem Aribeth de Tylmarande and restore her paladin powers. In the final battle, Mephistopheles taunts her that her powers never came from her god Tyr - he gave them to her just so he could play with her and make her inevitable defeat that much more cruel. As a Lawful Evil devil with vast powers and sovereignty over the 8th circle of Baator, we can be reasonably certain he's telling the truth. Which would make Mephistopheles Hoist by His Own Petard.
In The Binding of Isaac, Isaac's Mom believes she was ordered by God to abuse her son by confiscating all his things (including his clothes) and locking him away, culminating in attempting to murder him with a knife. However, God's hand comes down on Isaac's side in the first ending, implying that Isaac's Mom was simply delusional the entire time.

Web Original

The first episode of the web animation Doraleus And Associates deals with a strange (emphasis on "strange") pond lady (actually called "Lady of the Lake") who guarded the Zephyr Blade in waiting for The Chosen One to wield. She handed out increasingly random things like a tiny dagger, a biscuit and a branch, and asked Doraleus to use it them to fight an incredibly deadly beast hidden in the darkness, until Doraleus got fed up and left. Later on, it turns out that while she's clearly insane, the branch really was the Zephyr Blade!
YouTube user Shockofgod likes to claim that this is indirectly the reason people become atheists: When they realized Santa isn't real, they decided that if Santa isn't real, neither is God. Actual atheists beg to differ.

Web Comics

The Order of the Stick features an Angel "of pure Good and Law" which clears the heroes' names, making them innocent of a very serious crime in the eyes of an order of Paladins. However, the trial is just a Sham Ceremony, and the "angel" is just a manipulative ghost disguised as an angel.
- Considering the group committed the crime totally obliviously, and that the Paladins themselves had actively suppressed and hidden any information which might have let anyone outside their order even know it was a dangerous thing to do, the group probably would have been just fine with a real Angel (and it would have saved everyone some hassle/murder down the line when the fact the trial was rigged comes to light).
This xkcd comic.

Western Animation

One episode of Daria has Quinn convinced that she has a guardian angel guiding every minor decision she makes, giving her a Crisis of Faith when she embarrasses herself at a party. Daria convinces her that at the very least, she shouldn't rely on her theoretical protector for everything, just important stuff.

Real Life

Some fraudulent online institutions fit this trope.
Everyone believes this of everyone else's religion and their gods. That is all.