You Don't Want to Catch This/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character feigns illness in order to scare someone off.

  • Straight: Newsman Pete fakes a highly contagious disease in order to scare away a guard.
  • Exaggerated: Newsman Pete scares away an entire army by faking the common cold.
  • Downplayed: Newsman Pete actually has a disease, but deliberately plays up the symptoms to put the guard on edge.
  • Justified: There has been an epidemic recently and Pete is able to perfectly fake some of the symptoms.
  • Inverted: Newsman Pete scares away a sick person by being healthy.
    • Alternatively, Newsman Pete pretends that the guard is sick as part of a head game.
  • Subverted: Newsman Pete starts clutching his stomach as if he's about to fake a disease, but when the guard calls him on it, Pete punches him out.
    • Alternatively, Newsman Pete turns out to actually be sick, and collapses.
  • Double Subverted: After which he blames that attack on his highly contagious disease.
    • But it's only a cold, and he's actually faking a more serious disease.
  • Parodied: Pete starts listing ailments for the disease that he obviously doesn't have (multicolored hair, missing limbs, etc.) and the guard still falls for it.
  • Deconstructed: Newsman Pete fakes a highly contagious disease. The guard immediately declares a quarantine and seals off the area, trapping Pete until medical staff arrive to run tests on him that will expose his lie.
  • Reconstructed: ???
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Newsman Pete does not fake a disease.
  • Enforced: "Have him act sick. That'll be funny."
  • Lampshaded: "I can't believe he fell for that."
  • Invoked: Pete decides to paint fake boils all over his arms and chest in case he has to scare away some guards.
  • Defied: Pete considers using the fake illness excuse, but decides that it's quicker to just knock out the guard himself.
  • Discussed: "A guard's coming. Maybe we can pretend to be sick like in that one movie."
  • Conversed: "These Newsman Pete novels keep getting more sketchy. That tactic wouldn't work in real life."

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