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Mole in Charge: Difference between revisions
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* This seems to happen to [[SHIELD]] depressingly often in ''[[Nick Fury]]'' stories.
* The premise of the [[Marvel Comics]] storyline [[Dark Reign (comics)|Dark Reign]] and especially the ''Dark Avengers'' series.
* One ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]]'' story had the [[Red Skull]] become the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
** This caused more than a bit of [[Fan Dumb]] as it was during the Bush presidency and the name the Red Skull was using at the time had the initials D.R. OK, admittedly that's a funny coincidence, but "Dell Rusk" ''is'' an anagram of "Red Skull", so what else should the writers have called him?
*** Furthermore, if "Dell Rusk" ''were'' a reference to a real life Cabinet member, it would probably be to ''Dean'' Rusk, who was Kennedy and Johnson's Secretary of State.
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]]'' ends with {{spoiler|COBRA agent Zartan having replaced the real U.S. President}}.
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequel trilogy, Senator Palpatine becomes Chancellor of the Republic and [[Big Bad|Darth Sidious]] is the mastermind behind [[The Phantom Menace|the invasion of Naboo]] and [[Attack of the Clones|the Separatist Crisis]], which turns into [[Clone Wars|the]] [[The Clone Wars|Clone]] [[Revenge of the Sith|Wars]]. {{spoiler|They're the same person, whose ultimate goal is the downfall of the Republic and destruction of the Jedi Order.}} {{spoiler|And the Emperor, leader of the evil Imperial forces.}}
* {{spoiler|Viggo Mortensen}} does this in ''[[Eastern Promises]]''.
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* ''[[The Departed]]'': {{spoiler|Frank Costello}} is an {{spoiler|FBI informant}}.
** Though that was ''after'' {{spoiler|he had built up his empire}} as a self-defense measure. A better example is {{spoiler|Sullivan}}, Frank's mole in the State Police, who's put in charge of finding the mole in the State police.
* In ''[[Smokin Aces]]'' it's revealed that the leader of the mob is really {{spoiler|an FBI agent who was burned by his handlers and had to become a criminal for real to survive, eventually rising up the ranks to the top position}}.
* In ''[[Salt]]'', the ending strongly suggests that {{spoiler|the President dies from his wounds, and the Vice President who ascends to succeed him is another Russian sleeper agent.}} There's also the fact that {{spoiler|the CIA agent in charge of hunting down the sleepers is actually a sleeper himself.}}
* In ''[[My Favorite Martian (film)|My Favorite Martian]]'', the {{spoiler|man in charge of the organization hunting aliens}} is himself an alien.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[The Quest for Karla|Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy]]'' by [[John Le Carre]] does this, {{spoiler|more or less. [[The Mole]] is nominally the number 2 member of the organization, but actually in control of it.}} It was inspired by the unearthing of the Cambridge Five, who included Kim Philby (see below).
* In ''[[The Illuminatus Trilogy]]'', Hagbard Celine, leader of the Legion of Dynamic Discord, is also a Primus Illuminatus, as well as the leader of A.'.A.'.. Given his stated beliefs, the conflict of interest makes perfect sense.
** Of course, he took the place in [[The Illuminati]] purely to screw them up after he realized that he couldn't guide them to a more constructive path. His true loyalties, if such thing exists, lie with the A.'.A.'. He isn't their leader, though - if the group even has a leader, it's the Dealy Lama.
* In the [[Arsène Lupin]] novel ''813'', the Head of the French Police, the best detective ever seen, the only man everyone trusts to be able to catch [[Gentleman Thief]] Lupin... {{spoiler|turns out to be Lupin himself in disguise}}.
* In ''[[The Man Who Was Thursday]]'' {{spoiler|the protagonist discovers that the Council of Days, supposedly the supreme council of the British anarchist underground, is made up ''entirely'' of undercover police officers like himself.}}
* In Robert Heinlein's novel ''The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'', Adam Selene, figurehead of the Rebellion against the Lunar Authority, is in actuality a virtual construct of the Authority's main computer, who has quietly attained both sentience and a sense of humor.
* [[David Weber]] is ''very'' fond of this trope. The third book in [[Empire From the Ashes]] has it. The taking over of [[Safehold]] by the staff of the colony ships. ''Wind Riders Oath'' in the [[The War Gods|Bahzell]] series has ''several'' of them. Much of the backstory and the conclusion of ''[[Prince Roger]]''. The ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' books managed to avoid them for quite some time, but then the Mesans, with an entire multi-generational network of moles, appeared.
* [[Older Than Radio]], it is. ''Konrad Wallenrod'' by Adam Mickiewicz is a classic of Polish Romanticism, in which he postulated using deceit (as opposed to direct action) against the occupiers. The plot involves a Lithuanian who rises in ranks of [[The Teutonic Knights]], and after many years leads their army to a total defeat.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* This happens on ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' at least once every thirty seconds. {{spoiler|Between the "real" nature of SD-6, the loyalties of Derevko, the actions of Sark and the constant flip-flopping of characters between the CIA and other organizations... heck, there are even situations where a mole infiltrates an organization, rises to the top, then stages the infiltration of the organization they were moling for in the first place!}}
* Similarly, ''[[24]]'' has given us versions of [[President Evil]] who are really [[The Mole]] for hostile foreign powers.
* Subverted in ''[[The Prisoner]]'' episode "Free For All". Number 6 is elected to the position of Number 2, technically putting him in charge of the Village, but it turns out to be a cruel trick to break his mind.
* One episode of ''[[Yes Prime Minister]]'' revolved around the revelation that a former head of [[MI 5]] had, during his time in office, been a Russian agent.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[Sam and Max]]'', the mole in the toy mafia has become this.
* In ''[[
* You can do this in the game [[Seven Kingdoms|Seven Kingdoms 2: The Frythan Wars]] (And possibly the first one, but I have not played it so cannot say for sure) using your spy units. The spy looks like any ordinary unit to everyone but the owner and the enemy treats it like an ordinary unit, including for being promoted to general status and running a fort. And even for promotion to king if their king is killed and the spy is a general. Having a spy as a general allows you to take control of a fort and make it switch colors as well as some of the units in it, depending on loyalty or simply screw with enemy operations by conflicting orders. If the spy becomes king then you automatically defeat that enemy. Be warned though, the AI is good at using spies against you too.
* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' has a major one. The head of {{spoiler|the Yatagarasu case}} ''is'' {{spoiler|the Yatagarasu, or at least one member of the group.}}
** Hell, the original {{spoiler|Yatagarasu}} was made up of the {{spoiler|prosecutor, detective, ''and'' the defense attorney}} on the case. Considering there's no jury in the [[Ace Attorney]] world and the Judge is an idiot, you can't get much more in charge than that.
* One of the key plot points of ''[[Dawn of War]] II: Chaos Rising''. {{spoiler|Towards the end of the game the Blood Ravens learn that their Chapter Leader is actually a follower of Chaos. The game ends with the Blood Ravens under the player's command going rogue and setting off to expose the traitor.}}
* In ''[[Soldier of Fortune]] 2'', the [[Obviously Evil]] second-in-command of the anti-terrorist organization is also the leader of the main terrorist organization. It turns out he actually founded the terrorist organization to drum up business when the end of the Cold War caused a drop in demand for anti-terrorist services.
* In the 2005 remake of ''[[NARC]]'', the chief of the N.A.R.C. anti-drug task force is also the leader of K.R.A.K., the main drug cartel. It turns out she founded N.A.R.C. specifically to eliminate all the other competing drug cartels.
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* In ''[[Call of Juarez]]: The Cartel'', the Mendoza Cartel's high-ranking mole inside the U.S. government turns out to be Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Director Shane Dickson, the head of the special task force assembled specifically to deal with the Mendoza Cartel. In fact, the task force was [[Springtime for Hitler|designed to fail from the beginning]], which explains why all 3 members work together so poorly and are so obviously corrupt and/or insane.
* {{spoiler|Albert Wesker, in charge of the S.T.A.R.S. sent to the mansion}}, in [[Resident Evil 1]].
* In ''[[Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning]]'', the [[Big Bad]] of the {{spoiler|House of Sorrows Faction questline}} is the faction's leader {{spoiler|who is actually a Tuatha agent.}} He is even the one who recruits the Fateless One into the faction {{spoiler|and successfully manipulates him/her into removing one of the few obstacles left to his plan to destroy the House of Sorrows and claim its powerful magic for the Tuatha.}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[G.I. Joe|GI Joe Extreme]]'' ended at least one season with the villain Iron Klaw masquerading as the military official in charge of G.I. Joe itself.
* ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. The head of {{spoiler|Autobot Intelligence}} is {{spoiler|Shockwave, a shapeshifting Decepticon spy.}} Nice going, guys.
* In an episode of ''[[Captain Planet]]'' Gaia gets body-switched with one of the bad guys, leaving one of them to run her organisation and Gaia to "run" the bad guy organisation (by tricking them into acting in eco-friendly ways).
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* At the height of the [[Red Scare]], it was believed by some of the wackier [[Conspiracy Theorist|Conspiracy Theorists]] that President [[Dwight Eisenhower]] was a [[Dirty Communist|Soviet]] plant.
* Alfred Redl was the most devastating spy [[The Sound of Martial Music|Austria-Hungary]] ever had, giving [[Tsarist Russia]] virtually every scrap of data he could get his hands on to the point where by the time he was found out and forced to commit suicide, over a year of preparation did not even start to repair the damage by the time [[World War One]] started. Redl's role? Director of Austro-Hungarian intelligence!
** Though he was retired when he was found out. Interestingly, he was only found out because he had been so good at his role as a spy master for the Habsburgs: his reforms to the intelligence service had made the counter-intelligence branch quite effective at its job.
* [[Joseph Stalin]] has been accused of this, with some historians suggesting he may have worked as a spy for the Czarist secret police in the days before the Russian Revolution. If true, given that he would later become absolute dictator of the entire country under the movement he spied against and the virtually unchallenged head of the Communist world, it would probably make him the most successful example of a [[Mole in Charge]] ever. However, most historians have now dismissed this, as he was always referred to in Czarist police documents as a revolutionary terrorist, whereas their moles were always identified as moles.
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