Properly Paranoid: Difference between revisions

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{{quote| '''Dresden''': Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.}}

* Many of [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s characters fall under this trope.

** ''Every single character'' in ''[[~~Gravitys~~ Rainbow]]'' to some extent, but subverted in Slothrop, whose knowledge of many conspiracy theories leads him to create imaginary ones in his head, suspect everyone he knows and eventually lose his mind.

** ''Every single character'' in ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]'' to some extent, but subverted in Slothrop, whose knowledge of many conspiracy theories leads him to create imaginary ones in his head, suspect everyone he knows and eventually lose his mind.

* [[Vince Flynn]]'s ''Mitch Rapp'' lives like this. It annoys his wife quite a bit. {{spoiler|But that's not a problem anymore, since he slipped up with this ''just once''... but that was enough to kill her.}}

* From ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]'': "Hastur was paranoid, which was simply a sensible and well-adjusted reaction to living in Hell, where they really were all out to get you."

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== Live Action TV ==

* Mr. Bennet in ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]''.

* Martha Logan from Season 5 of ''[[~~Twenty Four~~ (TV)|Twenty Four]]'', whose conspiracy theories are unbelieved by everyone, even the audience initially. It's not a coincidence that she [[Meaningful Name|shares her first name]] with the below mentioned Martha Mitchell...

* Martha Logan from Season 5 of ''[[24 (TV)|Twenty Four]]'', whose conspiracy theories are unbelieved by everyone, even the audience initially. It's not a coincidence that she [[Meaningful Name|shares her first name]] with the below mentioned Martha Mitchell...

** Omar Hassan in season 8 gets steadily more paranoid after his own brother betrays him. This results in him arresting people on the barest of suspicions, up to and including his own head of security. {{spoiler|The head of security turns out to, in fact, be in league with the terrorists.}}

* In the episode ''Twice Shy'', from the fourth season of ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', Aeryn and John are taking a break for a number of reasons. To keep his mind off her, Crichton is going through a ''lot'' of a drug Noranti made for him which deadens his emotions towards her for short periods of time. Even when she wants to get back together, though, he resists. When she pleads with him to tell her why, he says he's moved on... and in the face of her almost begging for more of an explanation, has Pilot check the comm, which will result in them going offline for about thirty seconds. He uses the time to explain to her, suddenly going from Botox-face to deeply passionate, that with {{spoiler|Scorpius}} aboard he can't let on how much he loves her, because they're being spied on through the comm and she {{spoiler|and her baby}} are the one thing that will break him. She thinks the drug is making him paranoid... and then the comm come back online and they hear {{spoiler|Scorpius}} asking Pilot about the comm outage.

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* Practically the entire cast of ''[[The X Files]]'' displays this behavior at some point. Yes, [[The Men in Black|the Conspiracy]] really is out to get them. So much so that everyone largely stops caring after a while.

** What Suzanne Modeski tells the Lone Gunmen could be the series' motto: "No matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough." (I think that takes paranoia to the point of kitsch.)

* In the ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)|~~Doctor Who]]'' episode "Rose", Clive has spent years collecting information about the Doctor and building theories about him, most of which are right. Rose ignores his warning that death is the Doctor's constant companion. Within hours, aliens have attacked Rose and are killing people all over London, including Clive.

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Rose", Clive has spent years collecting information about the Doctor and building theories about him, most of which are right. Rose ignores his warning that death is the Doctor's constant companion. Within hours, aliens have attacked Rose and are killing people all over London, including Clive.

** Which just goes to show shows that spending too much time [[In Harm's Way]] is an good way to be ''[[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|mistaken for the cause of said Harm]]''.

* A second season episode of ''[[Forever Knight (TV)|Forever Knight]]'' starts out with a teen delivering groceries to the world champion of paranoia: barricaded in a house with the garden constantly lighted up like madison square garden, wild-eyed, unshaven, sweaty, clinging to his shotgun, very highly strung but, after the initial shock, almost a nice guy. {{spoiler|When Mr. Paranoia steps out of doors in a fit of anger just once, he isn't outside for a minute before something nasty gets him.}}

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'''Homer:''' You see, Marge? Do you see? }}

** And then another episode had Homer ''making up'' conspiracies and posting them to the internet. One such conspiracy (Flu shots being used for [[Mind Control]]) turned out to be true, causing Homer to be kidnapped and held in [[The Prisoner|The Villa]]--no I mean "The Island".

** In another episode, "Hungry Hungry Homer," Homer stumbles upon evidence that suggests that the Springfield Isotopes were going to be sold to Albuquerque. He attempts to alert the press, but by the time they go there, all the evidence is gone, leading them to believe that Homer was either lying or paranoid. He then orchestrates a food strike just to prove it. Eventually, he manages to stop the food strike when it as becoming clear that it was having bad effects on his health. Ironically, his quitting the food strike was also what caused him to be proved correct in his paranoia all along (as, thanks to a mistake in food changes, they ended up revealing that the foodstuff was of Albuquerque-style food, and they even sported the name "[[Defictionalization|Albuquerque]] [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Albuquerque_Isotopes~~ Isotopes].")

** In another episode, "Hungry Hungry Homer," Homer stumbles upon evidence that suggests that the Springfield Isotopes were going to be sold to Albuquerque. He attempts to alert the press, but by the time they go there, all the evidence is gone, leading them to believe that Homer was either lying or paranoid. He then orchestrates a food strike just to prove it. Eventually, he manages to stop the food strike when it as becoming clear that it was having bad effects on his health. Ironically, his quitting the food strike was also what caused him to be proved correct in his paranoia all along (as, thanks to a mistake in food changes, they ended up revealing that the foodstuff was of Albuquerque-style food, and they even sported the name "[[Defictionalization|Albuquerque]] [[wikipedia:Albuquerque Isotopes|Isotopes]].")

** In the episode Beyond Blunderdome, the executives were not willing to allow the remake that Mel Gibson or Homer Simpson to be released, as they feared it would result in negative backlash. After reluctantly letting them release it, their fears proved to be very sound, with several people walking out of the movie in disgust after watching it.

* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'': Waldo Schaeffer, alias Franz Hopper; changing his name was only the tip of the iceberg. His electronic diary was encrypted with code that would take years to crack, hidden in a train station locker whose key was hidden in his daughter's plushy which was in turn hidden in a crack of a wall in his house. And he created a ''[[Cyberspace|whole virtual world]]'' with the aim of hiding there with Aelita, out of danger from his pursuers. But hey, [[The Men in Black]] '''were''' after him, and they'd already kidnapped his wife.

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== Real Life ==

* The [[Trope Codifier]] might well be [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Golda_Meir~~ former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir], who is believed to have uttered the oft-quoted "Even a paranoid can have enemies" line to Henry Kissinger during the 1973 Sinai peace talks (in reference to her reluctance to give the Palestinians additional concessions). [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|The line is sometimes attributed to Kissinger.]]

* The [[Trope Codifier]] might well be [[wikipedia:Golda Meir|former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir]], who is believed to have uttered the oft-quoted "Even a paranoid can have enemies" line to Henry Kissinger during the 1973 Sinai peace talks (in reference to her reluctance to give the Palestinians additional concessions). [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|The line is sometimes attributed to Kissinger.]]

* Fidel Castro. The CIA actually tried to assassinate him ''over six hundred times''. The only reason he's still alive is because he's paranoid and because the CIA was really ''really'' incompetent about it. ''Exploding seashells?'' Drugging him with a chemical to make [[Badass Beard|his beard]] fall out? ''Seriously?''

* The Martha Mitchell effect, named for Martha Beall Mitchell. Mitchell told reporters that White House officials were committing criminal acts and that they once even went so far as to keep her sedated and imprisoned in a hotel room. It was leaked to the media that she had a drinking problem and most of her family abandoned her. Take a guess who was [[Richard Nixon|president...]].

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* There was a court case in which one of the witnesses was another witness's shrink. When asked whether said other witness was paranoid, he answered that he thought so, until he heard the testimony of some of the other witnesses.

* When [[Conspiracy Theorist]] [[David Icke]] (of [[Shapeshifting]] [[Lizard Folk]] fame) visited Canada, he was the subject of [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/17/features.weekend an actual conspiracy] to sabotage his visit. This culminated in a television appearance in which a psychologist brought in to reveal him as crazy asked why he thought that people were trying to silence him, whereupon Icke cited the official harassment and multiple cancellations he had received aimed at just that.

* One of Wild Bill Hickok's cardinal rules was to not sit with his back to the door to a room. John ("Broken Nose Jack") McCall ultimately demonstrated why this was a good idea, and why Hickok's violating that rule was terminally unwise, by [[Boom Headshot|shooting Hickok in the back of the head]].

* One of Wild Bill Hickok's cardinal rules was to not sit with his back to the door to a room. John ("Broken Nose Jack") McCall ultimately demonstrated why this was a good idea, and why Hickok's violating that rule was terminally unwise, by [[Boom! Headshot!|shooting Hickok in the back of the head]].

* Some people can honestly claim that [~~http~~:~~//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggishly_progressing_schizophrenia~~ Communists and the government had them falsely declared insane for disagreeing with them.] Indeed, if you are religious, particularly if you are a priest living [[In Soviet Russia]], China under Mao, or present-day North Korea (etc) could get you institutionalised, or just plain murdered. It is still pretty bad in large parts of the world and there are legions of people who have been locked up, or just plain killed, for 'subversive behaviour'....

* Some people can honestly claim that [[wikipedia:Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia|Communists and the government had them falsely declared insane for disagreeing with them.]] Indeed, if you are religious, particularly if you are a priest living [[In Soviet Russia]], China under Mao, or present-day North Korea (etc) could get you institutionalised, or just plain murdered. It is still pretty bad in large parts of the world and there are legions of people who have been locked up, or just plain killed, for 'subversive behaviour'....

* [[Paranoia Fuel|Ever notice those phone calls that hang up on you as soon as you answer...?]]

* Swiss nuclear physicists built a reactor in a cave so that if there was a meltdown, the mountain would keep the accident from venting radiation, as had happened in Chernobyl. The reactor did indeed suffer a meltdown, so the scientists sealed up the cave.

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* Joseph [[Mc Carthy]] tried several people who were supposedly Communist spies in what History would call the [[Red Scare]]. Although he ultimately tried the wrong people and destroyed many more lives and careers in the process thanks to his [[Witch Hunt]] tactics, his beliefs that the Soviets had actually infiltrated the country via various media personalities and government officials did actually prove to be quite sound, due to the release of various documents.

* Doubly happened on September 11, 2001:

** [~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla~~ Rick Rescorla], a former colonel in the US Army, became the chief of security for Morgan Stanley after he retired. First he expressed his worry that the towers would be vulnerable to a truck bomb... which then happened in 1993. Later he said that terrorists would probably try again--- using airplanes. He was last seen [[Heroic Sacrifice|running up the stairs of the South Tower to aid in rescuing more people.]]

** [[wikipedia:Rick Rescorla|Rick Rescorla]], a former colonel in the US Army, became the chief of security for Morgan Stanley after he retired. First he expressed his worry that the towers would be vulnerable to a truck bomb... which then happened in 1993. Later he said that terrorists would probably try again--- using airplanes. He was last seen [[Heroic Sacrifice|running up the stairs of the South Tower to aid in rescuing more people.]]

** Then, there was John O'Neill, who had become the head of WTC security 19 days before 9/11. His previous job: ''One of the main FBI counter-terrorism experts on Osama Bin Laden.'' When he took the job, he told his new boss he worried that they'd try to "finish the job".

* The CIA, KGB, Mossad, for that matter, ANY intelligence group that uses secrecy as its M.O, causes this trope by mere existing. And that's just the KNOWN ones. The ones that are completely unknown are even worse.

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[[Category:The Index Is Watching You]]

[[Category:Properly Paranoid]]

[[Category:Trope]]