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Properly Paranoid: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Earl:''' Guess we don't get to make fun of Burt's lifestyle anymore.}}
* ''[[I, Robot (film)|I Robot]]'': Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) doesn't trust robots, believing that they are not as safe as the [[Three Laws of Robotics]] are supposed to make them. He is therefore the only person in Chicago who doesn't get one of the new NS-5 model robots. When the NS-5s stage a [[Zeroth Law Rebellion]], Spooner is naturally the only human capable of effectively fighting back.
* ''[[
* Played with in ''[[The Departed]]''. Mob boss Frank Costello and the police captain that is investigating him both assume that the other has planted a mole in their organization. They're both right. However, both miss out on catching the moles, and neither realize {{spoiler|that each side has more than one mole at work.}}
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** And {{spoiler|Petra}} ''still'' ends up getting abducted.
* In ''[[Literature/Dragonsbane|Dragonsbane]]'' by [[Barbara Hambly]]:
{{quote|"Why?" [[Heroic Wannabe|Gareth]] bleated. "What's wrong? For three days you've been running away from your own shadows..."
"That's right," John agreed, and there was a dangerous edge to his quiet voice. "You ever think what might happen to you [[Living Shadow|if your own shadow caught you]]? Now ride -- and ride silent." }}
* Errtu from R. A. Salvatore's novels is also viciously paranoid, believing that anything bad happening to him is evidence of some sort of conspiracy against him. Given that he's a balor living in the ''Abyss'', he's not too far off the mark.
* Taken to an almost comical extreme in ''This Alien Shore'' by C.S. Friedman. The only people who're paranoid enough to pilot a spaceship into hyperspace [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|and come back alive]] are [[Power Born of Madness|functionally insane]], and in our own dimension they require massive amounts of medication to do more than lie on the floor whimpering.
* The paper-thin [[James Bond]] parody [[Punny Name|Fission Chips]] (Agent [[Arc
* Another [[Terry Pratchett]] example is in the Wizards from the ''[[Discworld]]'' series. Completely justified, as promotion amongst wizards means killing your predecessor. It's said (and paraphrased here) that when a wizard is sick of looking for deadly scorpions amongst his bedsheets, he's sick of life.
** A practise halted with the rise of Ridcully to Arch-chancellor: he's proven to be impossible to kill and as a result the whole smoking-boots promotion scheme has ground to a halt leaving the wizards more interested in a good meal than a good fireballing.
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* In ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', Dorian starts out improperly paranoid about his portrait. But he becomes very Properly Paranoid indeed the moment that {{spoiler|James Vane}} shows up.
* In the Weatherlight Saga of the [[Magic: The Gathering]] novels, the powerful planeswalker Urza plots for a millennium to defend against invasion by the Phyrexians. He's definitely crazy, and everyone assumes he's just being paranoid. But of course, when the Phyrexians show up by the million and start killing people, he's the one who leads the (barely) successful salvation of the world.
* In ''[[The Millennium Trilogy]]'', Lisbeth is bitter to extreme; she claims there was a government conspiracy which suppressed the events of her father accident and discredited her to keep people from taking her seriously. As a result she refuses to co-operate with anyone in the medical profession. Many think she was over reacting or actually is crazy, but she's right.
* [[Intrepid Reporter|Jack Parlabane]], from a number of books by [[Christopher Brookmyre]]. As he points out to his fiancée shortly after an attempt on their lives in ''Country of the Blind'' when she reproaches him for hiding a gun in the house: "Well, funnily enough, I had this outrageous idea that it might come in useful if someone happened to [[Genre Savvy|break in and attempt to murder us]]."
* In the [[Vernor Vinge]] novel "A Deepness in the Sky", Sherkaner Underhill thinks that {{spoiler|aliens from outer space are influencing world politics by altering information as it flows through the internet}}. To combat this, he sets up an intelligence division that consists only of his immediate family and who only communicate to each other in person, and pretends to go senile so nobody takes him seriously.
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* In ''[[The Tripods|When the Tripods Came]]'' the party finds that Switzerland is becoming this because of the Tripods.
* Most of the ''[[Animorphs]]'' books mention this to some degree, but the first book from Marco's perspective addresses it the best.
* In ''[[The Mortal Instruments]]'' Alec, after finding out a bit of Magnus's romantic past, he is shocked by [[Anything That Moves|how many people and
* ''[[In Death]]'': Alice Lingstrom from ''Ceremony In Death'' turns out to be a combination of this and just paranoid. She had been gang-raped by a Satanic cult, as well as witnessing the leaders murder a young boy in a sacrifice. Even though she left, the cult continues to harass her. She thinks one of the leaders is a shapeshifter, which is certainly not true. The cult also sent her threatening phone messages, which would certainly be cause for concern. In the end, she panics when she sees one of their illusions and runs out onto the road...right in front of an incoming car. What a brutal [[Kill the Cutie]] moment!
* The professor who narrates the chapter "In a network of lines that enlace" in ''[[If on a winter's night a traveler]].'' Notably, even ''he'' thinks he's being way too paranoid, until the very end.
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** He's not entirely wrong. He had uncovered some corruption, but the conspiracy was nowhere near as big as his paranoia made it seem.
** Fornell also mentions "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you.
** A better example would be Gibbs' [[Rule Number One|Rule Forty]]:
{{quote|'''Gibbs''': Rule forty.
'''Abby''': "If you think someone is out to get you, they are." }}
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** Malcolm eventually exposes the teacher right in front of Hal and Lois, by tricking the teacher into revealing he didn't even bother to read the answers. Of course, Malcolm does accidentally reveal that he took the test, but Lois becomes more livid that the teacher gave something Malcolm wrote "AN F?!!!"
* Agent Ballard in ''[[Dollhouse]]'', although it turns out that he isn't quite paranoid enough.
* In the season 4 finale of ''[[Lost]]'', off-island Sayid is this trope.
{{quote|'''Sayid''': I just killed a man who's been perched outside this facility for the last week. I'm finding paranoia keeps me alive.}}
** [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s2H9uhxEthA/SXgf5p_efAI/AAAAAAAAE0s/oILtvuJsVpM/s320/tape.jpg See?] If he wasn't so paranoid, he and Hurley would both be dead.{{spoiler|Well- deader, you know what I mean.}}
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* As might be guessed by the name, the same is true of ''[[Paranoia]]''.
* [[Chaotic Evil]] creatures in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''—as well as anyone living close to them—usually are leery to the extreme.
** The Drow are justifiably paranoid about their enemies and as such tend to get killed by their friends. [[Morton's Fork|Conversely]], if one spends too many time looking over the shoulder at one's allies... according to Drizzt Do'urden, "Those who watch their backs meet death from the front." Even technically [[Chaotic Good]] followers of Eilistraee tend to be very jumpy, as most of them are ex-Lolthites and
* A way of life (or perhaps the ''only'' way of life) for the Mages of [[Mage: The Awakening]]. Personal information can be used as an ingredient for more powerful spellcasting, so Mages take great pains to make sure that they leave no hairs anywhere, that their old clothing is either properly disposed of or burned, and that no one ever, ''under any circumstances'', discovers their real name.
== Video Games ==
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* Steven Heck from [[Alpha Protocol]]. He repeatedly references various crazy sounding conspiracy theories, such as operation Acoustic Kitty, which supposedly involved CIA operatives sticking recievers to the tails of cats for use in spying, which is actually [[Truth in Television]].
* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' there is a conspiracy theorist who is a constant caller on a late night radio station. His calls start off with conspiracies regarding aliens and area 51 but at the end of the game he reveals the entire plot of the game so far and the Vampire conspiracy but gets laughed off as being crazy.
* The Terrans in the ''[[X Universe]]'' are terrified of artificially intelligent ships, because their own terraformers [[Apocalypse How|wiped out all their colonies]]
== Web Comics ==
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