Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

So, our [[Intrepid Reporter]] has [[Broken Masquerade|discovered]] the world behind the [[Masquerade]], and she refuses to uphold it, destroy it, join it or get [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]], and in fact ''will go public'' with her discovery.

 

 

The heroes then get to work. Try to destroy the evidence? She made multiple off-site backups. [[Briefcase Full of Money|Bribery?]] She either doesn't want money, or figures the exposé will make her rich. [[Blackmail]]? She doesn't care about her reputation. [[Mind Control Device]]? She wears mirrored glasses.

May be an [[Elephant in the Living Room]] if this or [[Easy Amnesia]] are never brought up in a series with [[The Masquerade]], especially one managed by good guys. A leading cause of [[The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life]].

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Depending on your [[Point of View]], (Whether the actions of Light are good or evil) this is pretty much the crux of most of the plot points in ''[[Death Note]].''

* In the first ''[[Hellsing (anime)|Hellsing]]'' anime, a reporter is intent on releasing footage of vampires and is 'sentenced' to death by being drained by Alucard. In Integra's defense, the reporter had stood idly by recording a sadistic vampire as he savagely fed on a human, never even trying to stop the vampire, save the victim or report the vampire to... well, anyone.

** And Lelouch kills {{spoiler|Euphemia}} as part of being Zero, against his own personal wishes.

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' {{spoiler|Maes Hughes}} not only figures out the masquerade LONG before there's even an inkling of a clue, but also realizes that he's about to be killed, and tells Must- Oh. Wait. Nope. [[Tear Jerker|Too Late.]]

* Lots and lots of people offscreen in ''[[The Castle of Cagliostro|The Castleof Cagliostro]]''. Look at all those corpses in the basement. Most of them were killed either for political reasons or to keep the [[Counterfeit Cash|counterfeiting]] [[Ancient Conspiracy|operation]] from being exposed.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In the second arc of ''[[Fables]]'', a reporter discovers the fables are immortal... and thinks they're ''vampires!'' Bigby assembles a team and fabricates "evidence" that he's a pedophile (don't worry, Pinocchio is [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]] and not at all naive, though frustrated he can't grow up) and blackmails him into staying silent. Bluebeard kills him anyway on his own, alleging he's not a softy like Bigby.

* From ''[[Marvel Comics]]'', Elektra's latest turn to villainy involves her killing a heck of a lot of 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' agents. It turns out she was on the side of good all along...she just had to kill flunkies to maintain cover.

* An old ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' comic written by John Byrne had Dredd blow away a fellow Judge and thus get an in with a gang of crooks. It's okay, the fellow Judge had an incurable diseases and was in on the entire plan. The crooks ended up in a new jail.

 

== Film ==

* Chillingly portrayed in the otherwise-mostly-comical, if <s>somewhat</s> ''immensely'' cynical, ''[[Wag the Dog]]'' - {{spoiler|The producer of the fake war refuses to keep quiet about it; the person he's working for gives a nod to a federal agent, and in the next scene, the producer is reported as having died of a heart attack in his estate.}}

* Inverted in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' a Wayne Enterprises lawyer discovers the resources diverted to support Batman, when he announces he's going public, ''[[The Joker]]'' tries to have him killed and Bruce Wayne saves him.

 

== Literature ==

* Notably averted in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'': title character Harry Dresden is in the phone book under "Wizards." Normal humans who poke their noses into the supernatural do frequently end up dead, but that's simply because supernatural beings like vampires and fairies tend to be a) very dangerous and b) jerks.

** [[Lampshaded]] in ''Proven Guilty'' when a vampire laughs at Harry when he threatens to expose him, claiming Harry wouldn't dare reveal [[The Masquerade]]. He is horrified when Dresden informs him that anyone can look him up in the phonebook under "Wizard."

* A standing order in the dinosaur community of ''[[Anonymous Rex]]'' is that any humans who stumble onto the fact that humanoid dinosaurs are alive and living incognito in the modern world are to be killed for fear of backlash or persecution against the dinosaur races if mankind at large ever found out their existence. That dinosaurs are vastly outnumbered by humans gives them legitimate amount of concern, however, even the main character doesn't seem to have much of a problem with the morality of this policy.

* The Volturi in ''[[Twilight]]'', Their main job is to destroy vampires who attract too much attention to themselves. It was mentioned that they wiped out every vampire in Mexico when the vampire civil war there got out of hand.

 

** In a second season episode, a reporter threatens to go public with knowledge of the Stargate. ''Seconds'' after dismissing O'Neill in public, a passing car jumps the curb, sends him flying, and speeds away. O'Neill is fairly sure that he was Killed To Uphold The Masquerade, but [[Reasonable Authority Figure|General Hammond]] says that to his knowledge, it wasn't an assassination. The audience never finds out for sure either way.

** A Season Six episode has a reporter discover some evidence of one of the SGC's side programs. It turns out to be an NID plot, and the reporter is left empty-handed - but alive.

* In the second season of ''[[Dexter]]'', James Doakes discovers Dexter's secret. Dexter keeps him locked in a cabin for several days while he deliberates on whether to kill him, [[Big Damn Villains|only to have Lila do it for him]].

* ''[[UFO]]''. It's mentioned on several occasions that SHADO is prepared to do this, though we never actually see it, presumably because for the audience it would involve crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]].

* In ''[[Charmed]]'':

** There's an entire class of demons (Libris demons) who are tasked with killing any ordinary mortals who discover that they exist.

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

* This is basically "Standard Plot Complication #3" in any gameline of ''[[The World of Darkness]]''.

** Usually averted in ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]''. Even the Guardians of the Veil, the most secrecy-obsessed and [[Dirty Business]]-prone of the Pentacle orders, considers killing humans who might break the Masquerade an absolute last resort, and mages have a great number of other ways to deal with troublesome Sleepers.

* Averted in the ''[[Infinite Worlds]]'' setting for ''[[GURPS]]'', though only just. The Infinity Patrol have it as an ironclad policy that they ''will not'' kill people just to protect The Secret of parachronics. They've got [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|memory erasure drugs]], they can conjure up plausible explanations, discredit witnesses, and even just ask nicely, but they won't kill. When all else fails, they'll kidnap those who Know Too Much and put them on a [[Prison Planet]], but even that's exceptional and sometimes [[Dirty Business]].

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Shadownova]]'' the Everto do this a lot. One attack on a group of people who can see through the masquerade sets the entire plot in motion. Cameron, one of the Everto, then tries to make Iris, the only survivor, feel like it's her fault everyone had to be killed because she could see through the masquerade even though the ability to do so is completely involuntary.

 

== Web Original ==

* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' doesn't shy away from doing this when necessary. They prefer treatment with [[Easy Amnesia|amnesiacs]] when possible.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' has a sleazy reporter who has the power to become incorporeal, and who uses this power to discover Batman's identity. Nothing Bruce or Terry can say or do will convince him not to reveal Batman's identity on live television, which poses quite the problem since Batman, of course, [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|doesn't kill people]], even for his secret identity. Conveniently, the issue is settled for them when the reporter loses control of his powers, ultimately helplessly falling through the floor... and presumably continuing to fall until he reaches the Earth's core.

* In ''[[Transformers Prime]],'' the Decepticons are quite willing to kill any human that sees a giant space robot. The Autobots save 3 of them, and they end up as the human sidekicks, since if they want them dead anyway, they might as well be standing next to the other giant robots who can protect them.

 

== Video Games ==

** One of the audio clips has a reporter discussing some findings about Abstergo in a car and being listened too on a hidden microphone. Some Templar agents then casually discuss eliminating him.

** Another clip has a man finding a hidden TV channel with his bio signs and other information on it, [[Too Dumb to Live|he telephones the TV company]] (Abstergo) and the company sends a "technician" who breaks down the door. Call ends.

*** Made even more disturbing by the child in the background yelling, "Dad! Someone's at the door!"

** Ser Jory is killed when he tries to back out of the joining, after watching Daveth die, though it probably didn't help that he pulled a sword on [[Badass|Duncan.]]

** Smiling Jack from the tutorial summarizes the Masquerade thus: "We're living in the age of cell phone cameras; fuck-ups ain't tolerated!"