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Revealing Coverup: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.RevealingCoverup 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.RevealingCoverup, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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'''Father Brown:''' There is only one...To make sure that everybody is looking at something else.|''[[Father Brown|The God Of The Gongs]]''}}
{{quote|''"I will periodically send my assassins to kill random conspiracy nuts in suspicious-looking ways. There is little danger that they will find out about my plans and no one would have believed them anyway, but the heroes will be convinced that they were killed for what they knew and will get so wrapped up in trying to foil my diabolical plan to [[Epileptic Trees|give all trees epilepsy]] that my real plans will go unchallenged. Plus it gives my assassins something to do."''|[[
Generally speaking, when you're a [[Diabolical Mastermind]] and you want to cover up [[Evil Plan|some kind of nefarious activity]], the general desire is to be low-key, go about one's business and [[Villain Ball|not attract undue attention]]. This is especially critical when you don't want the other guys to know that you're being nefarious all over their business. What's the point of breaking in and stealing the codebook if they know you have it and simply change the code? So you keep it simple, keep it quiet, don't rock the boat...
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...well, unless you're so clever you've thought of a cunning plan that does the exact opposite. Instead of having your agent sneak into the embassy to photograph the codebook, you're going to make huge splashy headlines to get everyone looking the other way. Why, with your plan to fake aliens landing and [[Fiery Coverup|blowing up the embassy]], surely no one will notice a code book gone missing. It would be the ''last'' thing they'd suspect.
Unless you're a [[Magnificent Bastard]] or a ''very'' proficient [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]], it never works. Inevitably they'll connect the fake aliens to your organization, making them wonder what you're up to, which will lead them to the (hitherto unknown) [[The Mole|Mole]] you had planted in the embassy staff, and then it's heroes getting <s>all over your business</s> all up in yo' bidness [[Oh God, With the Verbing!|with the rappelling]] into the [[Supervillain Lair|volcanic headquarters]] and the shooting and the debris falling into the [[Shark Pool]] and having to run away while waving your fist and yelling about [[You Meddling Kids|getting away with it if it hadn't been for those darn kids]] and then having to find a new lieutenant after [[You Have Failed Me|having shot the previous one]] for having the bad taste to point out that it was your plan that caused all this when you'd have been further ahead just getting the damn pictures taken.
See the [[Conspicuous Trenchcoat]] for this same principle applied to costumes. Contrast this with [[Crime After Crime]]. Subtrope of the [[Kansas City Shuffle]]. For the comedic version, see [[Legitimate Businessmens Social Club]].
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See also [[Streisand Effect]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==
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== [[Film]] ==
* The bad guy in ''Die Hard With a Vengeance'' just '''had''' to get cute when he left McClane [[Death Trap|strapped to a bomb]]; {{spoiler|that stupid aspirin bottle led the cops right to him.}}
** On the other hand, his brother did it perfectly in the first ''[[Die Hard (Film)|Die Hard]]'', {{spoiler|disguising a bank robbery as an act of terrorism so the FBI would treat it as one and [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|cut the power so they could break into the vault]]. Hell, they even counted on the whole "The United States Does Not Negotiate With Terrorists" thing, and planned on suckering them into strafing the rooftop full of hostages with helicopter gunships - that and the explosives they planted would mean that by the time they figured out that they weren't among the casualties, they'd be "sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent".}} Too bad that McClane didn't care about the plan and was just trying to [[Spanner in The Works|screw things up any way he could]].
** Simon's plot in Die Hard 3 is actually yet another example of this, {{spoiler|detonating bombs around New York City, forcing Mc}}{{spoiler|Clane personally to jump through hoops to find the others, then convincing the police there's a bomb planted in an unspecified NYC school - all so the Federal Reserve Bank on Wall Street will be relatively free of emergency services}}.
* If the traitor in the ''[[Mission Impossible (Film)|Mission Impossible]]'' film had not tried to be overly clever in trying to frame Kittridge as the real traitor, Ethan Hunt would not have been able to confirm the identity of [[The Mole]] on his team. All he'd had to do was simply shoot Hunt, have [[The Mole]] grab the list, and he'd have been in the clear with Hunt still considered the traitor and everyone else believing {{spoiler|Jim Phelps was dead}}.
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* Season 5 of ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'' opens with the bad guys trying to frame Bauer which only gets him involved in the scheme far earlier than he would have (if ever).
** Double-Subverted in Season 8, when a villain disguised as an EMT suspects Renee Walker recognized him. He tells his boss he can get rid of her and Bauer, but the boss orders him to wait out of concern for this trope. Ultimately, the guy goes ahead with an attempt anyway, but by that time Renee's already realized where she recognized the man from and alerted CTU to the fact.
*** Not to mention what happens afterwards is what ultimately brings Jack back into the field for the final episodes of the season. It's entirely possible that some of the more high ranking villians in that paticular plot would have gotten away had it not been for Jack's involvement. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice job breaking it villian!]]
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' two-part story "Aliens of London/World War Three", a fake UFO crash was organized by real aliens among the British government to cause worldwide panic and distract attention from ''themselves'' and such "non-noteworthy" events as the "disappearance" of the Prime Minister. While this did allow them to take over 10 Downing Street, wipe out most of the country's alien-invasion experts (who were intentionally gathered in Number Ten to discuss the crash, so they could be taken out) and gain access to the British nuclear arsenal, it also alerted the Doctor and Rose Tyler to their presence.
* A lot of the murderers in ''[[Columbo (TV)|Columbo]]'' do this. As do about half of the murderers in ''[[Monk (TV)|Monk]]'' and the various ''[[Law and Order]]'' spin-offs.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* On ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' [[Dragon With an Agenda|the Weird Sisters]] actually manage to get away with this: they have Demona and Macbeth steal the [[Time Travel|Phoenix Gate]], the [[A Darker Me|Eye of Odin]], the [[Spell Book|Grimorum Arcanorum]], and [[Cyborg|Coldstone]]'s body. As Coldstone is much larger and more noticeable, and as the other three objects were only being held by the Gargoyles to keep it out of other people's hands, they only initially notice Coldstone's absence, which was [[Batman Gambit|exactly what the Weird Sisters were hoping for]].
* On ''[[Young Justice]],'' [[Humanoid Abomination|Klarion]] and his allies cast a spell that splits the world in two, with one dimension for adults and one for children and teens. While the heroes are eventually able to trace the magic to its source and stop them, they fail to notice that in the confusion, [[Archnemesis Dad|Sportsmaster]] and [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|the Riddler]] {{spoiler|steal Starro's tissue sample from STAR Labs}}. Klarion's colleague [[
* Used in ''[[Re Boot]]'': Hexadecimal's extra security concerning The Medusa, a weapon she's developing, prompts Megabyte to steal it in hopes of gaining the power it's sure to have. The twist being that this was ''exactly'' what she wanted to happen, and he becomes the Medusa bug's first victim, while she gloats.
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