Unwitting Pawn: Difference between revisions

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the words of {{spoiler|the fake}} Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth ''[[Harry Potter]]'' book,

** {{spoiler|Ginny Weasley}} in ''[[Chamber of Secrets]]'', though she eventually became suspicious and {{spoiler|tried unsuccessfully to destroy the diary.}}

** Harry Potter himself in ''Order of the Phoenix'', when Voldemort tricks him into going to the Department of Mysteries. Especially notable given that he told Snape (who at this point he believed loyal to Dumbledore) that he'd had a vision of Sirius in danger there, [[Idiot Ball|and still rushes in to do the Dark Lord's dirty work for him]].

** The entire cast of protagonists are suckers, by the classic definition, as the most basic element of the Storm King's [[Xanatos Gambit]] is to trick them into {{spoiler|[[MacGuffin Delivery Service|bringing him the Three Swords]]}}. It works perfectly.

* [[Discworld|Vimes]]. Oh, dear, poor Vimes. ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud]]'' comes to mind, in which the ''entire'' quest he undertakes has been engineered by the very politicians whom he thinks he's going to stop, to give them an excuse to make peace with each other, which is what Vimes wanted all along, except that he's been their unwitting pawn...

* The [[Dale Brown]] book ''Act of War'' has many characters play into {{spoiler|National Security Adviser Robert Chamberlain's}} hands.

** ''Shadow Command'' sees US President Joseph Gardner playing right into the hands of Russian President Leonid Zevitin. The former's egoistic desperation to control the [[Chaotic Good]] protagonists leads him to steadily feed information that should have stayed classified. Fortunately for Gardner, he does not end up outliving his usefulness.

* In ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2'', {{spoiler|[[General Ripper|General Shepherd]] is revealed to have set up a five-year gambit to pit the USA and Russia against each other, so that he may lead the USA to the status as permanent ultimate world power, and be known worldwide as a "hero" for it. And he doesn't give two shits over how many millions of innocents get in his way. The man made all of the US, UK, & Russia into his Unwitting Pawns, including the player characters, one of whom (Roach) he kills after sending him to retrieve the evidence that would have exposed him as the mastermind behind the plot. Even though [[Spanner in the Works|Price & Soap managed to kill him]], it's not stated if Shepherd's plan has already succeeded. Hints suggest that [[Downer Ending|it]] [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|did]].}}

* Copy-X, and, to a lesser extent, Zero and his [[La Résistance]] allies in ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 3''. [[Big Bad|Dr. Weil]] played them all for fools, orchestrating the new conflict between Neo Aradia and the [[La Résistance]], which was just after an unofficial truce made by Zero and the Guardians. Zero goes off to fight Copy-X to stop the conflict, and when the latter tries to go [[One-Winged Angel]], a booby-trap which Weil installed earlier on Copy-X, was activated, killing him. With Copy-X gone, Dr. Weil, the one next in power, is now the new dictator of Neo Arcadia. It was [[Lampshade Hanging|pointed out]] by Zero himself:

* [[The Starscream|Prometheus and Pandora]] in ''[[Mega Man ZX]] Advent''. At first, they backstabbed [[Big Bad|Albert]] and then fights Grey/Ashe. After s/he defeats them, suddenly their anguish, hatred, and despair are absorbed by [[Artifact of Doom|Model Ws]] in the background and then they collapse. The real Albert then appears, stating that the body that everyone think by "Albert" is actually a decoy, and that those negative emotions are necessary to revive and activate the Model Ws.

* In ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'', Starkiller/Galen Marek is shown to have been one when {{spoiler|Vader reveals that everything up to that point had been planned by himself and [[Manipulative Bastard|Palpatine]] to have Stakiller assemble a proto-Rebellion. It didn't matter if his goal was to stay loyal to Vader and "distract" the Emperor, or if he thought he was fooling Vader and genuinely attempting to form a rebellion, his only purpose was to get them together in the same place at the same time.}} It only fails because {{spoiler|Juno and PROXY are jointly the [[Spanner in the Works]]}}, one sacrificing himself to distract Vader as he's {{spoiler|about to kill his apprentice}} and the other rescuing him after his fall. The ending also implies that {{spoiler|Vader was also an [[Unwitting Pawn]] to Palpatine all along. He wanted to see if Starkiller had the potential to surpass Vader and become Palpatine's new apprentice.}}

* ''Apollo Justice: [[Ace Attorney]]'''s {{spoiler|Klavier Gavin}} is the [[Unwitting Pawn]] for {{spoiler|his brother Kristoph}}'s [[Evil Plan]] to get Phoenix Wright {{spoiler|disbarred}}. See [[Disproportionate Retribution]]. The game before that had {{spoiler|Pearl Fey}}, who was manipulated into triggering the events of the final case by {{spoiler|her mother, Morgan Fey.}}

* In ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' [[Humanoid Abomination|Alex]] [[Person of Mass Destruction|Mercer]] spends most of the game unknowingly aiding the plans of people who want him dead. {{spoiler|First, he frees Elizabeth Greene, thinking she's just another victim. As it turns out, she's the [[Hive Queen]] behind the virus. Then, he tries to help his ex-girlfriend, Karen Parker, by providing her with biological materials from the infected. As it turns out [[Armies Are Evil|Blackwatch]] has coerced her into working for them, and that genetic material Alex collected gets turned into a parasite which almost kills him. Then, Blackwatch Captain Cross tricks him into going to a location where they hit him with both [[Deadly Gas|Bloodtox]] and [[Super Soldier|D-Codes]]. Finally, the Supreme Hunter consumes Cross, and uses that form to get Alex to kill off the Blackwatch leadership, and in an attempt to catch Alex off-guard so that the Hunter might eat him}}. Our [[Heroic Sociopath]] manages to overcome all this because he's a [[Badass]], but he does come across as a bit of a gullible idiot.

** Part of the reason is because the amnesiac Mercer, even though he's [[I'm a Humanitarian|eating people left and right]] in order to understand what the hell is going on, is often in the dark about what the hell is going on. As the game progresses he ''knows'' he's probably being played, but due to a lack of options he has to play along anyways if he's going to have a hope of accomplishing anything. He even says it outright to {{spoiler|Cross}}.

* {{spoiler|The new leader of Team Plasma, N,}} is shown to be this in [[Pokémon Black and White|Pokemon Black and White]] when {{spoiler|his father, Ghetsis, reveals that he was [[Complete Monster|using N to make pokemon illegal for everyone but himself]].}} What an asshole.

* The Tribunal expansion of Morrowind gives us the power-maddened (literally) {{spoiler|pseudo-god Almalexia. Centuries of wielding power that is unfit for mortals has left her more than a little crazy, and she has the protagonist carry out her increasingly insane orders (whether or not the character is aware that he's being manipulated is [[Heroic Mime|impossible to tell]]. Either way, it's a case of [[Plot Induced Stupidity]]). When she finally lays out her cards, she embarks on a long monologue about how nutty she is and how stupid you are, and there isn't even a [[Talk to the Fist]] option}}.

* Patroklos Alexander from ''[[Soul Calibur]] V'' is the son of legendary Holy Warrior Sophitia Alexandria and has pledged himself to hunting the 'malfested' who slew her and kidnapped his elder sister. {{spoiler|So he winds up killing the human enemies of Graf Dumas, an alias of what amounts to the grand-daddy of all malfested... the Azure Nightmare himself.}}

* {{spoiler|Dimentio}} does this to Mario and co. in [[Super Paper Mario]]:

** To make it worse, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|this speeds up The Void]], to the point where it [[Endofthe World As We Know It|destroys the multiverse]]; it's hardly a spoiler to say that everything turns out all right in the end, though.

* The Player Character is this in ''[[Dark Souls]]''. No matter what you do, by beating the game you're just a pawn in an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] and [[Forever War]] regarding whether the Age of Fire should continue or end.

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In ''The Normal Innocent Bystander's Survival Guide'', point 17 is: