The Dog Was the Mastermind: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

You're getting close. The clues are fitting together, and everything is unraveling. You're ''this close'' to finding [[The Man Behind the Man]]. Your trail of clues finally ends, and the [[Big Bad]] is...

This trope is when, through a rather jarring plot twist, the true [[Big Bad]] or [[The Man Behind the Man]] turns out to be a seemingly completely inconspicuous character, the last person anyone would ever suspect, often as part of the villain's [[Evil Plan]]. [[Chekhov's Gunman|You've seen him before]]. Maybe once, maybe a few times, maybe repeatedly throughout the story but you never suspected a thing up until [[The Reveal]]. [[Unwitting Pawn|Sucker.]]

 

 

Beware, however, in certain types of fiction, such as when you are supposed to guess the identity of the villain, this can come off as an [[Ass Pull|enormously]] [[Shocking Swerve|crappy]] [[Deus Ex Machina]].

 

 

Sometimes appears in a [[Clueless Mystery]]. Sometimes involves the [[Almighty Janitor]] or [[Beware the Nice Ones]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* In the ''[[Medabots]]'' anime, the [[Big Bad]] turns out to be a (cybernetic) house cat using the body of a mad scientist as its puppet.

* In ''[[Eden of the East]]'', the mastermind behind the Selecao organization, Mr. Outside, is really {{spoiler|an old taxi driver. You may remembering seeing him in the earlier episodes, long before his reveal near the end of the story.}}

* In ''[[Code Geass]]'' no one could have possibly guessed that the co-[[Big Bad]] of the story was actually {{spoiler|Anya, the fairly emotionless girl. Even less likely is anyone figuring out that the dear old Mommy everyone loves could be one of the biggest evil bitches in anime history}}.

 

 

== Comic Books ==

* In the ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' comic book series, a recurring villain is a genetically engineered house cat who fakes his own kidnapping from a research laboratory. Yes, in the Darkwing Duck universe [[Furry Confusion|ducks can keep cats as pets]].

** This is something of a reoccuring theme among Spider-Man villains. The original Green Goblin was eventually revealed to be [[Norman Osborn]], the father of his best friend (this being long before Norman established himself as the Lex Luthor of the Marvel Universe). The Jackal, better known as the villain who set up the [[Clone Saga]], was Peter's nerdy science professor. The Hobgoblin, a villain modeled after the Green Goblin, had a two-for-one deal. He was originally revealed to be a Daily Bugle reporter and longtime minor supporting cast member Ned Leeds until a [[Retcon]] explained that he was yet another minor supporting character who had since faded into near-obscurity.

** One particularly jarring example involves Spider-Man searching for the murderer of a scientist who had created a crime cataloguing supercomputer. {{spoiler|The culprit is none of the three suspects, ''but the computer itself.''}}

* In the third ever [[Justice Society of America]] story in ''All Star Comics'' #5, the JSA bust up a series of rackets headed by a mysterious figure known as Mr X. At the end of the story, an innocuous milquetoast who had appeared in each of the individual chapters turns up the police station. It turns out he is really Mr X and now, with all of his rackets smashed, he intends to turn himself in and live off the state in prison.

* ''[[Rat-Man]]'': one story has the eponymous "hero" meeting Graziello, a stick figure who annoys him by telling corny jokes and laughing in a monotonous way, and Rat-Man can't get rid of him. In the end we discover that everything that happened in the issue was Graziello's plan: as a failed comic book character who never got the chance to be published, he lured Rat-Man to the comic book school and in doing that he had appeared in a ''Rat-Man'' issue, thus finally [[Medium Awareness|being published and read by many people]]!

* An [[Anti-Hero]] version of this trope happened in ''[[Watchmen]]''. Rorschach's identity was mostly a secret until it is revealed he was {{spoiler|that random homeless guy that was always hanging out in the background.}}

 

 

* The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' story ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4101650/1/Backward_With_Purpose_Part_I_Always_and_Always Backward With Purpose]'' involved Harry, Ginny, and Ron [[Set Right What Once Was Wrong|traveling back in time]] [[Peggy Sue|to fix]] a [[Bad Future]]. At the same time ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|relatively]]), someone else is also traveling from the future and [[The Man Behind the Man|tweaking things behind their backs]]. It is revealed to be {{spoiler|Harry and Ginny's son Albus, who was never seen previously and had not yet even existed in any form or timeline from the main characters' (and audiences') perspective}}. Perhaps most bizarrely, if you read the sequel ''it all makes sense''.

* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[[Forward]]'', it turns out that the mastermind behind the events of the "Charity" episode was {{spoiler|Katie, the little girl following Zoe around, who was actually a powerful psychic}}.

== Films -- Animated ==

* The villain in ''[[Hoodwinked]]'' fits this to a T. Except instead of a dog it's {{spoiler|a cute little bunny rabbit named Boingo}}. The fact that {{spoiler|[[Chekhov's Gunman|he keeps appearing in the stories]]}} may send up warning flags to the savvy viewer.

* {{spoiler|Miles Axlerod}} from ''[[Cars]] 2''.

* In ''[[Meet the Robinsons]]'', the [[Big Bad]] turns out to be {{spoiler|the bowler hat}}.

* An early cut of ''[[House of 1000 Corpses]]'' had the relatively harmless Grampa Hugo Firefly turn out to be Dr. Satan. [[Rob Zombie]] decided this would have been anti-climactic and changed it.

* Parodied in the "Scooby-Doo Ending" of ''[[Wayne's World]]'', where it's revealed that Ben is really Old Man Withers, the amusement park owner who Wayne spoke to for five seconds near the beginning of the film.

* The first ''[[Saw]]'' movie (see page quote). {{spoiler|The "guy on the floor" (John Kramer) is also seen in a flashback, where he's equally inconspicuous as a patient at the cancer ward.}}

* All of the movies in ''[[The Thin Man (film)|The Thin Man]]'' series operated this way. Start with a murder, present a colorful parade of suspects, end by revealing the killer to be someone the audience had no reason to suspect.

* In the Hungarian film ''[[Kontroll]]'', the masked killer is a welder who appears briefly in one scene. (Although that's not revealed in context; you can only find it out from behind-the-scenes information about the same actor playing both parts.)

* Subverted in ''[[Phone Booth (film)|Phone Booth]]''. At first, it looks as though the Caller was {{spoiler|the pizza guy who only had a very brief appearance at the start of the film. However, it turned out the real Caller had the pizza guy hostage until he got caught, in which case he slashed his throat left him to as a decoy to escape.}}

* Played straight, and somewhat deconstructed, in s German Film "''Net of Steel - The witness''" (Stahlnetz - die Zeugin). The murderer is {{spoiler|the eponymous witness, a 12-yr-old girl picked mercilessly by her family and threatened by others because of their secrets. The deconstruction applies because the girl is not a "mastermind" - rather a desperate child - but still totally aggressive - and before [[The Reveal]] she is seen just as a random girl who saw too much.}}

* In ''[[Cube]] 2: Hypercube'', the supposed superhacker and mastermind Alex Trusk turns out to be... {{spoiler|a blind girl?}}

* ''[[Source Code]]'': major suspicion is cast on every person in the hero's immediate area (including [[The Hero]] himself!), and then the Villain turns out to be a random background character who had literally 2 seconds of screen time before [[The Reveal]].

* Similar to the [[Source Code]] example above, [[Dream House]] throws suspicion over nearly every character introduced. {{spoiler|The actual killer? Someone who drove by the main character's house during one scene and did not become relevant again until [[The Reveal]].}}

== Literature ==

* The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series has its own page for [[Chekhov's Gun]] and its various [[Sub Tropes]], so this comes up a few times.

* In ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', the masterminds of Deep Thought's experiment were the lab mice that humans thought they were experimenting on.

* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] series ''[[New Jedi Order]]'', an evil alien race called the Yuuzhan Vong invades. Their leader is [[Evil Overlord|Supreme Overlord]] Shimrra, a God-King who truly looks the part. The last novel in the series reveals that {{spoiler|he is actually being force controlled by his jester, Onimi}}, a being so far below Shimrra that he was considered as little more than a pet.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]'' novel "Stone and Anvil", the Excalibur crew needs to find the man who created Janos' intelligence to help him extend it. To bad he doesn't exactly know how to do that...the real mastermind is his pet Gribble, a small animal no larger than a rat. {{spoiler|Before the Gribble can do anything, though, Janos eats him.}}

* In ''Accelerando'' by [[Charles Stross]], everything that happened turns out to have been masterminded by {{spoiler|the Macx family's robotic cat.}}

* Quentin Makepeace (a foppish playwright in the prime minister's company) turns out to be the mastermind of all the events in ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]].''

* In ''[[Murder In Pastiche]]'', the killer turns out to be {{spoiler|the ship's purser who was a detective fiction fan and thought it would be a waste if there were so many famous detectives on board and they didn't have a murder to solve}}.

* In ''[[Bridge of Birds]]'', {{spoiler|the true identity of the tyrannical Duke of Ch'in turns out to be the meek, perpetually scared Key Rabbit. Oh, and his greedy peasant wife is a long-lost goddess}}. It actually makes perfect sense once Master Li explains it and there are many hints dropped throughout the novel, especially for the latter part, but it almost certainly stunned many first-time readers.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' this is Molly's reaction when she {{spoiler|is shown a photograph of the traitor on the White Council}} in ''Turn Coat.''

* In ''[[Doorways in The Sand]]'', {{spoiler|there's a near-literal example: the mastermind is in nearly every scene, disguised as the cat}}.

* In William Tenn's 1955 short story ''The Servant Problem'', the ruler of a future [[Dystopia]] is a [[Smug Snake]] subconsciously controlled by {{spoiler|his education minister}}, an [[Out-Gambitted]] [[Magnificent Bastard]] subconsciously controlled by a [[Magnificent Bastard]] {{spoiler|psychologist}}, who in turn was [[Out-Gambitted]] and controlled by {{spoiler|a junior technician}}. Things go pear-shaped for this [[The Man Behind the Man|Man Behind The Man Behind The Man Behind The Man]] when it turns out that {{spoiler|he, like everyone else in the world, was conditioned to worship the ruler; this dystopia is evidently now a dog chasing its own tail}}.

* In one of the ''Agaton Sax'' kids' detective books, someone who appears to be an average-looking member of the crew of crooks turns out to be the criminal mastermind boss himself.

* In ''Hush, Hush'', it turns out that the person trying to murder Nora was {{spoiler|Jules}}. Given how he was virtually nonexistent in the story, it was rather...jarring.

 

 

* Good guy version: In the ''[[Get Smart]]'' episode "The Mysterious Dr. T", it turned out the [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist|genius inventor]] Dr. T was a {{spoiler|kid seen selling newspapers.}}

* ''[[Sherlock]]'' has already pulled it twice. In "A Study in Pink", the serial killer turns out to be {{spoiler|a cabbie, seen earlier when Holmes and Watson chased down his cab because they thought the passenger might be the killer.}} In "The Great Game", Moriarty is revealed to be {{spoiler|Molly's boyfriend Jim, who showed up briefly earlier in the episode.}} (Though this last {{spoiler|was guessable, considering "Jim" is a nickname for "James."}})

* Mr. Yang in ''[[Psych]]'' is revealed as this through flashbacks when Shawn meets {{spoiler|''her'' at the end.}}

* In an episode of ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' the killer was, {{spoiler|of all people, a ''pig''}}. It was an accident, so the characters promptly {{spoiler|adopt him as a pet.}}

* Another example occurs in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "Aquiel," where the crew finds out that a shape-shifting organism is behind the [[Mystery of the Week]]. Two people, a Klingon and the eponymous Aquiel, are suspected of being the monster, but {{spoiler|it's really Aquiel's dog, which served as a minor comedic subplot during the episode}}.

* In ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'': {{spoiler|Mr. Smith is a supporting character who gives information on aliens that land on Earth. It turns out he's a Xylok (sentient crystal) who created the computer as a host - and the most important thing to a Xylok is their purpose. Mr. Smith's purpose is to destroy the Earth's crust to free his kind - they were trapped there after their ship crashed to Earth (wiping out the dinosaurs). Mr Smith escaped in the eruption of Krakatoa.}}

 

* In ''[[Heavenly Sword]]'' it's revealed that {{spoiler|King Bohan's bird is actually The Raven Lord; a demonic warlord from [[All There in the Manual|the sword's backstory]]. The final battle is against a fused version of the two.}}

* In ''[[Heavy Rain]]'', the Origami Killer being {{spoiler|Scott Shelby}} is a big surprise even to {{spoiler|Lauren, who spent half the game in his company. The Player does especially not suspect Scott since he [[Pet the Dog|rescues cute widdle Babies]], saves a man from a shoplifter and helps a [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold|prostitute]] against an aggressive customer.}}

* In ''Taz: Wanted'', {{spoiler|TWEETY}} is the mastermind behind it all. This is especially mind-numbing when you consider that {{spoiler|he's been your tutorial and hint provider for the ENTIRE GAME, including the final level.}}

* In ''[[Baten Kaitos]]: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean'', it turns out the traitor is the one person everyone suspected least: {{spoiler|Kalas, the player character}}.

** Until the reveal from a Drama CD revealing that {{spoiler|Saya was brought forth to Relius shortly after her kidnapping and Relius made a cryptic comment that she's going to be a vessel for something, meaning Imperator Saya, for all means, could be a [[Puppet King]] manipulated by Relius and Hazama, therefore the mastermind may have been both of them since the very beginning.}}

* One that's really only known in Japan is the culprit in the old mystery game ''[[wikipedia:Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken|The Portopia Serial Murder Case]]'' (although some may have heard about its [[Shout-Out]] in [[Haruhi-chan]]). The culprit is quite literally the one you'd least suspect, since not only is he your assistant, he's also (since the main character is an unseen [[Heroic Mime]]) ''the guy executing the player's commands and speaking for the main character''. The revelation was so out of left field that the phrase "Yasu is the culprit" is something of a [[Memetic Mutation|minor Japanese meme]] for this sort of trope.

** This meme gets used in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', when we find out {{spoiler|the culprit's 'real'}} name is Yasu.

* In the open-world [[First-Person Shooter]] ''[[Boiling Point: Road to Hell]]'', a patron in the bar at the beginning of the game turns out to be the game's [[Big Bad]].

* Played with in the "Killerman" event in ''[[Illbleed]]''. Midway through, you're asked to finger a suspect for the role of Killerman (if you're right, you win more money). Besides the proper suspects you've encountered, the choices for who may be the murderous Killerman includes... [[Shaped Like Itself|Killerman]], and the ''[[Breaking The Four Wall|player]]''. The latter is explained that playing ''Illbleed'' [[The Most Dangerous Video Game|drove you insane and made you go on a killing spree]]. (This being ''Illbleed'', this is at least somewhat plausible.)

* Played very straight in ''[[Discworld Noir]]''. The serial killer who has been ritually murdering the citizens of Ankh Morpork (including the main character Lewton) is revealed to be the god Anu-Anu. When his worshipers are all gathered in church praying to him, his power grows and he transforms into a large bestial monster... but the rest of the time, he's trapped in the form of a small dog, which Lewton sees outside the Guild of Tomb Evacuators shortly before he is killed.

** This might count as a subversion, though, since Anu-Anu himself is manipulated by some members of his cult.

* The first case of ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]] 2'' involves the attempted assassination of a visiting president. It ultimately turns out to have been orchestrated by {{spoiler|a clown at the local circus}}.

* In the [[Stylistic Suck]] "movie" ''Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective'', which is an episode of ''[[Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People|Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People]]'', after a plot involving Dangeresque's nemesis Perducci and Uzi Bazooka, the true identity of {{spoiler|actually, impostor of}} Dangeresque Too, the [[Big Bad]] is {{spoiler|Craig, a character played by The Cheat, who had been in multiple scenes, unnamed, and previously referred to with the in-game tooltips by "The Cheat" when everyone else was described using their characters' names in the tooltips.}}

* DS [[Visual Novel]] ''[[Time Hollow]]'' posits the notion, in an optional extended ending, that {{spoiler|Sox the cat was the being behind most if not all of the game's events, or at the least that he's a mightier being than he lets on.}}

* [[The World Ends With You]]: Okay, on the one hand, something was seriously wrong with Joshua. On the other hand, I don't think anyone was expecting him to be {{spoiler|the composer}}.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' story has one such reveal in the story {{spoiler|1="There Is A Raptor In My Office". It turns out everything was engineered by the Fox News weatherman. Earlier in the story, he was all puffed up to do a story about three hurricanes in the Atlantic forming a Mickey Mouse shape only to be deflated by a lead in story about velociraptor riding banditos. The entire story sprung from his efforts to keep Dr. McNinja's latest adventure under the rug so that everyone will be interested in his story.}}

* In ''[[RPG World]]'', after Galgarion disguises himself to infiltrate the heroes, we get an extremely elaborate [[Red Herring Mole]] in the form of Eikre. Galgarion's actual disguise? {{spoiler|A ''flower'' that Eikre had bought and attempted to give to Cherry.}}

* One ''[[Electric Wonderland]]'' story detailed Trawn's attempts to report on the bombing of the Nettropolis Mall. Lululu helps her find the man she suspected of causing the explosion, but he turns out to be a decoy. Who ''really'' led the attack? {{spoiler|The cat seen sitting on the suspect's table while Trawn searched his apartment for evidence.}} Anyone can take on any form in [[Cyberspace]], after all.

* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has {{spoiler|Betty Crocker and Her Imperious Condescension. Both of them are little more than background references until it turns out that they're actually the same person and the (likely initial) [[Big Bad]] of Act 6.}}

* The identity of the butcher in ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]'' turns out to be {{spoiler|a duo: Ness and Lucas, who were seen briefly in an early episode}}. This was so effective that ''nobody'' in [[Wild Mass Guessing]] correctly guessed it. [[Word of God]] near-explicitly denied the possibility beforehand, claiming that {{spoiler|Ness or Lucas wouldn't play a large part in the series, since child actors were too hard to work with.}} While not ''[[Exact Words|technically]]'' false, {{spoiler|since they only appeared in those two scenes and had no speaking parts,}} this was a highly misleading statement that helped to divert suspicion from the culprit(s).

* In episode 86 of ''[[Bonus Stage]]'' it was revealed the second version of Evil was {{spoiler|MALCOLM, a very minor character who only appeared in one episode prior and never showed any signs of being evil}}.

* Used/Parodied by [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] in a "previously" that had nothing to do with the comic.

* The "DNA Evidence" arc of ''[[Homestar Runner]]''. After being [[Arc Words]] in a number of otherwise unrelated shorts, we get a story about a vial of green DNA Evidence that keeps changing hands and getting stolen. Turns out that it was from {{spoiler|Strong Sad, who doesn't want anyone to find out if he's part elephant}}.

* In [[Becoming Human]], it turns out the killer is {{spoiler|Mr. Roe, the mild-mannered teacher, helpful teacher who was the only character to never be a suspect.}} A second more minor example is {{spoiler|the janitor, who spent a lot of time in the background before being believed to be an accomplice, but eventually turned out to be a [[Red Herring]]... or was he? }}

* The [[Twist Ending]] of [http://gegenschein17.deviantart.com/art/Sliding-Scale-of-Evil-299292851 this] one-off [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]] fancomic.

* [[Phelous]] has some fun with trope while reviewing The Amityville Horror 4. Why? The big villain is a demon possessed lamp. No, really.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* The trope name comes from an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', where Homer produces a remake of ''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]]'' in which the villain is replaced by a dog, made obvious (to Homer) because "[[Traitor Shot|the dog has shifty eyes]]". The exchange is below, courtesy of SNPP:

'''Homer:''' They will if you set up that the dog is evil. All you do is have to show him doing this. [lowers eyelids and glances around in shifty-eyed fashion] [[Trope Namer|The people will suspect the dog.]] }}

** As a [[Brick Joke]], a dog with shifty eyes appears at the end of the episode.

* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "About Last Night...", Kyle's toddler brother Ike was the key player in Obama and McCain's ''[[Ocean's Eleven]]''-style heist.

** A variation occurs in the Mysterion Trilogy (''Coon 2: Coon and Friends'', ''Mysterion Rises'', and ''Coon vs. Coon and Friends'') when [[Late Arrival Spoiler|Kenny as Mysterion]] tries to find out the origin of his immortality, learning it has something to do with the Cult of C'tulu. When a [[Superman|Jor-El type]] [[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context|man in a glowing ball appears to explain everything completely out of nowhere]], it turns out {{spoiler|he was actually talking to Bradley Biggle AKA Mintberry Crunch, a character introduced pretty much entirely for these episodes, who learns he really is a super hero who combines the powers of mint and berry. Kenny never really learns the truth about himself and is as confused by the entire encounter as the audience.}}

* [[Invader Zim]]: It was me! I was the turkey all along! MEEE!!

* In ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'', one episode has the Eds track down someone who went to great lengths to frame them for various crimes. {{spoiler|It ultimately turned out to be Jimmy, who was angry at Eddy for casually giving him a wedgie.}}

* ''[[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]]'' uses this a fair bit - usually, of the named characters, the culprit is the one who seems secondary, is introduced completely outside the course of the mystery, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with it at all.

** The biggest examples from Mystery Inc. are probably {{spoiler|the Trickel's Triquids mascot}} from "Revenge of the Man Crab", who only appeared for 10 seconds, and {{spoiler|the Minner brothers}} from "Battle of the Humongonauts", who didn't appear at all before the unmasking and were only mentioned in radio ads and one scene on a billboard.

** [[Older Than They Think]]. In the original series episode "A Clue For Scooby Doo" no-one recognizes the unmasked monster at first, until Shaggy of all people puts a beard on him. The ghost of the dead Captain Cutler was actually...[[Faking the Dead|a very much alive]] [[Shaped Like Itself|Captain Cutler]].

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Mucha Lucha]]'s'' [[The Movie|movie]] is {{spoiler|a random girl that appears at the beginning.}}

* The three-parter "Brainwashed" of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' has several false leads behind the mastermind heading the plot to dumb down the world. Turns out it's the cat belonging to the scientist responsible for genetically modifying the eponymous mice.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:More Than Meets the Eye]]

[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]

[[Category:The Dog Was the Mastermind]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]