Unwitting Pawn: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"I was a fool. I had been deceived that I had been working for a greater good. I was in fact an unknowing tool of a greater evil."''|'''Shunjinko''''s biography, ''[[Mortal Kombat Deception]]''}}

 

 

These guys are not always being manipulated by the villain; [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom|sometimes they blunder their way into helping him of their own accord]]. Not that the villain's going to examine his gift horse for cavities...

* In ''[[Death Note]]'', ''nearly everybody'' falls victim to this trope at some point, [[Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] included. Misa is the only major character who does not, and that's likely because [[Mad Love|she's not really the type to act independently]].

** Oh, she was definitely a [[Unwitting Pawn]] at least once. Light once suckered the entire rest of the cast except for L himself, who {{spoiler|managed to set up a [[Thanatos Gambit]] to counter his death, which he managed to anticipate before it happened. The anime makes it very clear in the end that L was the true winner after all.}}

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', Whitebeard was a target for this. The World Government wanted to kill him and his whole crew with a barricade killzone trap and execute Ace, {{spoiler|the son of the Pirate King}} once they are stuck as a warning to all Pirates and cement their power. However, Whitebeard, {{spoiler|while he still dies, manages to re-ignite the Golden Age of Pirates, and most of his crew and allies survive. Also, technically Ace was saved, but still dies anyways.}} However, in the end, he, and technically the WG, is still fooled by the true mastermind and main cause of the war, {{spoiler|Blackbeard}}. His plan was that he knew Whitebeard would risk anything to save a single of his crew, and the WG would do anything to take him down. {{spoiler|While everyone is focusing on Marine HQ, Blackbeard slips into Impel Down, recruits the strongest prisoners of Level Six, which contains some of the worst criminals in the history of the world, sails back, kills Whitebeard, steals Whitebeard's destructive powers for his own means, and then makes a clean escape.}} Even worse, the WG's pride makes it that they will not acknowledge his success, and cover it up, meaning he can plan even more things unharrased.

** Another interpretation is that everyone, their grandmother and their grandmother's yappy dog fall under this trope in that series. We have SEELE, a secret organization of [[Chessmaster|Chessmasters]] planning to {{spoiler|combine everyone's souls into one consciousness [[Utopia Justifies the Means|against their will to save humanity from extinction.]]}} Then we have Gendo Ikari, who is supposedly the [[Yes-Man]] of SEELE but is really [[Bastard Understudy|using them for his own goals.]] As the commander, everyone at NERV is his puppet and he arranged for his son to be molded into the personification of this trope years in advance. Even the angels themselves fall under this category. The whole series ended with a [[Gambit Pileup]] that ended with {{spoiler|Rei}} being the true mastermind and {{spoiler|Shinji becoming a god!}} At least [[Gainax Ending|I think it did.]] Another popular interpretation is that ''everyone'' is a [[Unwitting Pawn]] for {{spoiler|[[Alternate Character Interpretation|Yui]] [[Evil Matriarch|Ikari]].}}

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', it turns out Sasuke was the [[Unwitting Pawn]] of both [[Aloof Older Brother|Itachi]] and [[Big Bad|Madara]]. No wonder he developed [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]].

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''Everyone'' in the ''[[Saw]]'' movies is like this. The entire franchise is one giant incomprehensible [[Gambit Roulette]], and all the characters are constantly walking right into Jigsaw's plans.

** Though inverted because, even though we the viewer are [[Genre Savvy]], Jigsaw genuinely wants the suckers to live, he doesn't expect them to make the wrong choice and die but he wants them to make the right choice and live, therefore he doesn't do Xanatos Gambits - or just ones that fail. His successors and helpers, however, do seem to want everyone to die, and expect them to do dumb things - which they do. All the time. One can only assume that in universes in which things like Saw and all such are set, no-one watches thriller/horror movies, because the only [[Genre Savvy]] character is often the killer.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

{{quote|Decent people are so easy to manipulate.}}

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

* Everyone except Iago from ''[[Othello]]''.

* In Stephen Marley's book ''Spirit Mirror'', [[Chia Black Dragon]] tries very hard to dodge [[Magnificent Bastard|Nyak's]] [[Xanatos Gambit]] by [[Take a Third Option|taking a third option]]. {{spoiler|She fails, and ends up [[Sealed Evil in a Can|releasing Nyak from his can]]. Then in the next book, ''Mortal Mask'', she does it again.}}

* In the ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' series:

** The entire point of Elaida is to further the plans of the Forsaken by either doing what a servant says or just [[Idiot Ball|being an idiot]].

* At the end of Suzanne Collins's ''[[The Hunger Games|Catching Fire]]'', Katniss learns that she was central to an enormous plot that no one let her in on.

* In the ''Mistborn'' trilogy, {{spoiler|everyone is [[Unwitting Pawn]] for Ruin and its plan for complete...ruin.}} And in true Xanatos spirit, that's not even the end of it it, since {{spoiler|Preservation made a [[Unwitting Pawn]] out of Ruin by making humans in ITS plan for offing Ruin.}} DANG. For the record, "everyone" includes the [[Big Bad]] ''and'' the [[Chessmaster]]. No mind goes [[Mind Screw|unscrewed]].

* Kronos does this to ''everyone'' in [[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]. Furthermore, especially in the second book of the new series, [[The Heroes of Olympus]], many characters, among which the [[Big Bad]] herself, state that Percy will be Gaia's pawn, and that he'll bring about the destruction of the gods.

* King James in [[Harald]], who makes war on [[Posthumous Character|his father]]'s allies on the advice of his [[Evil Chancellor]], who is in the pay of the real [[Big Bad]].

* The ''entire cast'' of ''[[Angel]]'' in season four. {{spoiler|They spend a whole whack of time chasing down Jasmine, hoping to free the world from her version of lovey-dovey mind-control. At the end, their victory is entirely spoiled when evil law firm Wolfram and Hart contact them saying how happy they are that they've averted instant world peace.}} Nearly everything they had done in the past seasons had led to {{spoiler|Jasmine's}} rise to power to begin with. Ironically, in the next season, the entire Wolfram and Hart becomes a sucker when Angel fools its higher-ups into thinking he is corrupted. And for giving him the means to do it, as a reward.

* In ''[[Lexx]]'', captain Stanley Tweedle's backstory, in which he was supposed to deliver what amounted to blueprints for the emperor's superweapon to the rebel forces, and instead ended up providing the emperor with the codes to deactivate the rebel's planetary defenses.

** Poor John Locke is now the '''king''' of this trope. {{spoiler|In the course of the last seasons he has been a pawn used by a supernatural being who apparently planned Locke's whole ordeal, his reputation as someone "special" and then his final sacrifice so that he could take John's form and ultimately kill his own enemy, Jacob.}} The sheer number of episodes in which this [[Gambit Roulette]] at his expense has unfolded makes him something of a Unwitting Pawn Marathon Man. Also, {{spoiler|Ben manipulated him into blowing up the submarine.}}

** He also kept juggling [[Idiot Ball|Idiot Balls]], [[Villain Ball|Villain Balls]] and [[Conflict Ball|Conflict Balls]] all throughout the series, while every single flashback has portrayed him as a gullible loser. It's a testament to Terry O'Quinn's acting that, in spite of that, he has consistently been one of the most interesting, popular and [[Badass Grandpa|badass]] characters of the show.

* In the 1998 ''[[Merlin (TV miniseries)|Merlin]]'' series, both multiple characters (Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere) end up as Mab's suckers at one point or another.

* The "rich and powerful" marks Nate Ford mentions during the opening credits for ''[[Leverage]]'' are usually these. At some point along the way, their Mooks will often fall to this trope or Elliot, whichever one hits first.

* In the fourth season finale of ''[[Chuck]]'', {{spoiler|it's revealed that every major plot point that has happened since the pilot has been part of a bigger scheme, with Chuck and possibly everyone involved with those major plot points as the unwitting pawns. Whose pawns, exactly, and in what game, has yet to be revealed.}}

* [[The X-Files|Mulder and Scully]]. It's pretty much their job description.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shepherd in ''[[Half Life]]''. We don't [[Kansas City Shuffle|exactly know what the plan is]] but that G-Man keeps laughing at us.

* The player character in ''[[Bioshock]]''. However, this is justified, as the player character {{spoiler|is being mind controlled by Atlas/Fontaine from the very beginning, so he had no control over his actions. At least, until Dr. Tennenbaum snaps him out of it}}.

* Serge of ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' ''defines'' this trope. The guy can't go to the bathroom without furthering someone or [[AI Is a Crapshoot|some]][[Eldritch Abomination|thing]]'s plans. The fact that [[Gambit Pileup|everyone's plans revolve around him trying to get out of someone else's gambit does not help]].

* Practically ''everyone'' in the [[Chzo Mythos]] is a [[Unwitting Pawn]] in some way. Practically a testament to how incredibly good Chzo is at this [[Magnificent Bastard]] business.

* There is sort of a subversion played on this in ''Spartan: Total Warrior'' The game, like the movie [[300]] which it shares many similarities to, consists of ridiculously epic [[Conservation of Ninjutsu|One Against Billions]] battles and sweeping, one-button-per-5-victims decapitations like a living lawnmower, all while listening to the god of war Ares's evil laughter and bloodlusty encouragement ("Hahaha, kill and kill again!"). It appears blatantly obvious to anyone familiar with button-mashing spells and swordplay epics that he will turn out to be some sort of enemy in the future, and that his plan all along was to get you to kill every Roman and his mother, but it turns out that it's only half true; {{spoiler|while Ares does indeed to turn out to be the [[Big Bad]], your genocide on the Romans was merely a distraction so that your homeland of Sparta could be destroyed while you were away. We are treated to multiple more tropes during Ares's [[Hannibal Lecture]], such as the fact that he is your [[Luke, I Am Your Father|father]] and Tiberias was merely a [[The Man Behind the Man|puppet]]. You technically did fulfill his plans for mass murder, but it was of both your enemies AND your friends.}}

* ''[[Diablo]]'': This trope is played painfully straight when the player character gets [[Grand Theft Me|possessed]] by Diablo. [[Downer Ending]] for sure.

** Even more so Diablo 2: {{spoiler|The entire game is the tale of how Marius gets manipulated by Bhaal into rescuing his soulstone from destruction at the hands of the player character, escaping the fate that his brothers suffered. Poor Marius dies in asylum cell as the horrible truth comes crashing down on him.}}

*** One can argue that, for a brief, shining moment, {{spoiler|Sephiroth himself could be considered one, depending on whether or not Aeris knew she needed to die to make Holy work.}}

*** Sephiroth was also implied to be one throughout the whole game. No, not the fanon about him being used by Jenova. It was by Hojo. Hojo was implied to have set up all the events for Sephiroth to go berserk, and then was trying to aid him upon his return without Sephiroth knowing it, not simply because Sephiroth was his son, but also because Hojo wanted to see his (amoral) research blossom to full fruitition. The Novellas also implied that Hojo actually ended up possessing Sephiroth to give him more power after he was killed by AVALANCHE so he can bear witness to the final results of his creation, due to not being able to properly diffuse into the lifestream. What's worse, he doesn't stop there. He also ends up digitalizing his mind into the worldwide network and later possesses Weiss, making most of Deepground unwitting pawns as well for his final, final experiment, the revival of Omega, which was also implied to be concurrent with Sephiroth's revival and ascension.

** {{spoiler|Almost ''everyone''}} ends up this way in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' after the dust has settled from the [[Gambit Pileup]] by the story's end. {{spoiler|Except Delita. And Ramza.}}.

** Doesn't Ramza {{spoiler|end up completing Delita's [[Batman Gambit]]?}}

** By the time [[Final Fantasy XIII]] rolls around, the main group is being ''told'' that they're Unwitting Pawns.

* [[Radiata Stories]]. [[Idiot Hero|Jack]] does [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Lucian's]] job for him. All he has to do is provide the tools and the directions.

* ''[[Golden Sun]] I'' and ''II'' has Alex, who uses both parties in a massive [[Unwitting Pawn]]. While they fight amongst each other about lighting the lighthouses Alex twiddles his thumbs for when they finally do and cause the Golden Sun to rise and shine down massive power down on Mt. Aleph, where he happens to be waiting.

** Only to discover that he ''himself'' was {{spoiler|the Wise One's}} [[Unwitting Pawn]] in his plan: {{spoiler|he knew lighting the lighthouses would allow someone to gain enough power from the Golden Sun to conquer the world, so when all but one of the gems required to light the lighthouses was removed from their chamber, the Wise One transferred just enough of that power (which was originally split evenly between the gems) from the remaining gem to Isaac without telling him, meaning that if the lighthouses were all lit, anyone who wanted the Golden Sun's power would not get enough of it to conquer the world.}}

** Speaking of ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]'', other than the brief revelation that Coldman was the deviously cunning strategist that Gene alluded to in Portable Ops, it turns out that most of the game was manipulated by Paz Ortega Andrade, even the KGB agent Zadornov hiring Snake as a distraction to force Coldman to activate Peace Walker so he could hijack it and frame America with an attack on Cuba, and she wasn't even the one who pulled all the strings: Her employers, Cipher, had planned out the entire incident just to get Big Boss to rejoin the fold, and it is also heavily implied that they also ordered Paz to frame Big Boss and MSF with nuking the East Coast when Big Boss refused the offer. They also arranged for Kaz to briefly work with them, although it is also implied that they didn't tell him about the nuke plan.

** The ending to ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' implies that Solid Snake and Otacon may have ended up being [[Unwitting Pawns]] of the Patriots all along.

* The hero from the ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series has a terrible habit of playing right into the game's villain's hands, even though he manages to fix things in the end. In ''Quest for Glory 2'', {{spoiler|he gets mind-controlled into releasing the evil djinn Iblis by the game's [[Big Bad]], then is almost trapped forever in Iblis' chamber}}. In ''Quest for Glory 3'', {{spoiler|in an attempt to bring peace between two tribes, he brings their leaders together in front of a third-party king. Then one of the leaders becomes possessed and kills the other, and is promptly killed by another person in the room, almost guaranteeing the war he was trying to stop}}. In ''Quest for Glory 4'', {{spoiler|he falls for a trick by the [[Big Bad]] from the second game, back for revenge. As a result, he ends up having to go through the motions to release a [[Cosmic Horror]] on the world}}. However, {{spoiler|Elsa Von Spielburg}} is the Unwitting Pawn in ''Quest for Glory 5''.

** The hero being the hero, he couldn't very well save the world without putting it in danger first.

* ''[[Vagrant Story]]'': In a very unusual example, Ashley Riot was a [[Unwitting Pawn]] for {{spoiler|an [[Anti-Villain]], who manipulated him into ''saving'' the world from the much more dangerous [[Knight Templar]] Guilderstern}}.

* Fei Fong Wong of ''[[Xenogears]]''. Not only was he a sucker for Solaris, the Wave Existence, his split personalities and his own prior incarnation, but even his friends manipulated him without reservations.

* The majority of the plot of ''[[Atelier Iris 3]]'' concerns three quirky teenagers trying to find [[Mineral MacGuffin|eight gemstones]] so they can open a book which will grant any wish, while helping the even-more-quirky townsfolk with their problems. What could go wrong? {{spoiler|How about nearly causing [[The End of the World as We Know It]] because you were manipulated by an evil spirit from (almost) the very beginning into wasting the only wish you get?}}

* After slaughtering his own people and eventually letting one of his closest friends die, [[Warcraft|Prince Arthas]] {{spoiler|becomes a servant of the Lich King}}. He also becomes the new Lich King.

* In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' the reason that you're told to try and keep President Kimball and General Oliver alive if you're working for Mr. House or Yes Man is that after the NCR gets the boot from Vegas their citizens will be quick to blame them for waging a costly and unpopular war while still capable of being on decent enough relations with Vegas to do trade.

* Edge in ''[[Panzer Dragoon]] Saga'' spends the whole game being used by the Seekers, the Empire, and by Craymen, since he's the only dragon rider aside from Azel atop Atolm Dragon.

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

{{quote|''"Even if the count dies, the Chaos Heart won't disappear if I continue to control it! But I needed the power of the Pure Hearts to beat him. I couldn't do that on my own. So I had you do all the sweaty labor for me. And you even used your Pure Hearts to defeat Count Bleck! If they make greeting cards to thank people for helping with evil plans, I owe you one."''}}

** 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.

 

 

* In ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', Omi ends up playing right into Chase Young's hands in the second season, {{spoiler|temporarly becoming his apprentice}}.

* [[Kim Possible]] found herself in this position in ''So The Drama'', when it was revealed that [[Romantic False Lead|Erik]] was really [[The Mole|a "synthodrone"]] working for Drakken. As Ron observed, "Drakken didn't win, he played you." An even more direct case was in the episode "Hidden Talents", where Drakken created fake messages from [[Mission Control|Wade]] (as well as sending a virus to the real Wade) to get Kim to [[MacGuffin Delivery Service|bring him]] one of Dementor's inventions. He also attempted to do it a second time after he forgot to tell Kim to get the adaptor plug, but the second time didn't work as well due to Wade debugging his computer.

* In one episode of [[Batman: The Animated Series]], a businessman builds a casino...themed after [[The Joker]]. Joker is understandably incensed, a breaks out of Arkham to punish this act of image-theft by blowing up the joint. As Batman discovers, the businessman had spent too much on his building, and gave it a Joker-theme so the Joker would do just that, and then cash in on the insurance.

 

* Napoleon III, who got played by every second-rate power in Europe, and some overseas. He certainly WAS one to Bismarck, but that was because [[Magnificent Bastard|Bismarck was Bismarck]] rather than because Napoleon III was gullible. Indeed, he actually came out on top of most of his battles (Mexico and the war of 1870 were the exception, not the rule), and most of the time he was being "played" by said second-rate powers, it was largely because he grasped more or less what they were doing and sympathized enough to go through with it anyway (Italy 1859 is the most obvious example, but the Belgian revolution and the Crimean War came in close seconds). If anything, he fell victim to trying to be someone he wasn't and had the misfortune to run up against the most ruthless and skilled ruler in Europe in charge of the largest and best military on the continent.

* Supposedly, the only relatively foolproof reason for letting yourself be recruited as a spy is to do it for the money. Any other motives (Freedom, Nationalism, the Workers' Revolution, whatever) expose you to being played as an unwitting double agent, mole, or agent provocateur by the people you oppose.

** [[Giggling Villain|Mwihiwhih]]....[[Evil Laughter|MWAHAHAHAHA!]]

** Huh. I figured I was a [[Spanner in the Works]].