Unwitting Pawn/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The Hero has been tricked into accomplishing the villain's plans.

  • Straight: Alice has been tricked into killing innocent people by Bob.
  • Exaggerated: Alice is manipulated by every villain.
  • Justified: Alice had no reason to think that Bob was tricking her. Alternatively, Alice is easy to fool.
  • Inverted: Bob is tricked into saving innocents by Alice.
  • Subverted: Alice realizes that Bob is trying to make her kill innocents, so she manages to avoid doing so.
    • At first, Alice believed that Bob had used her to kill innocents, but later on, Alice discovers that she killed the wrong people and ended up hindering Bob's plans.
  • Double Subverted: Which is exactly what Bob wanted.
  • Parodied: ???
  • Zig Zagged: Bob tricks Alice into a lot of things, but not even Bob will know if Alice's actions will help or hurt him until later.