Hero with Bad Publicity/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A heroic character who is hated.

  • Straight: Bob is wrongly accused of robbing banks that the townspeople hate him.
  • Exaggerated: Bob is wrongly accused of everything that the whole world hates him.
  • Downplayed: Bob is distrusted due to his secretive nature.
  • Justified:
    • Bob comes from a Dysfunctional Family or has the Face of a Thug, and rumors of his wrongdoings are heavily pushed by a Villain with Good Publicity.
    • Bob does heroic acts, but without the knowledge Bob has gained, people seem to think attacking that diamond mine was a little to close to evil to go unquestioned. This snowballs into an outright fear of Bob, thinking that he might attack anyone or anything.
    • Bob runs around town wearing a mask and keeping his identity a secret, which no decent person would feel the need to do, and thus must be untrustworthy.
    • Bob used to be a bad guy.
  • Inverted: Villain with Good Publicity.
  • Subverted:
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied:
    • Bob is purported as the cause of Global Warming.
    • Every time something bad happens, it's always Bob's fault. Always.
    • Bob is the ultimate do-gooder and everyone can see that, but still refuses to trust anybody wearing a mask.
  • Deconstructed: Bob has such a horrible reputation, that no one ever trusts him at all, even though he's completely innocent of the crimes he's said to have committed. Bob suffers a Despair Event Horizon and later makes a Face Heel Turn.
  • Reconstructed: Bob will not let his bad publicity sway him, and continues doing what's right, no matter how thankless a job it may be.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob is originally hated by the townspeople due to his mysterious nature, but eventually gains their trust by fighting crime. However, his actions, though good, end up causing massive property damage and they begin to hate him for that. He fixes the way he fights crime so that he doesn't cause unnecessary damage and pays for everything he breaks, which earns the trust of the people back, but a misunderstanding due to an evil doppelganger cause them to distrust him again.
  • Averted: Bob is immediately and continuously loved by the people he protects.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "Wow Bob, you really can't catch a break, can you?"
  • Invoked: Bob's public alter ego gave himself the bad image so as his (potential) enemies would assume he was on their side.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

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