History Main / DeliberateUnderPerformance

->'''Susie:''' I got an A! What did you get?\\
'''Calvin:''' I'd hate to be you; I got a C+.\\

'''Calvin:''' I find life's easier when everyone's expectations of you are lower.

** ''Literature/Pyramids'' reveals that the Discworld's camels are an entire ''species'' of this. They are extremely intelligent, and also realize that if humans knew of this they would have camels doing all sorts of things constantly. Therefore camels behave in a way that makes them barely suitable for work, which means humans don't expect them to do more than the bare minimum while still providing food and shelter and the camels are left with plenty of time to themselves.

* ''Literature/Pyramids'' reveals that the Discworld's camels are an entire ''species'' of this. They are extremely intelligent, and also realize that if humans knew of this they would have camels doing all sorts of things constantly. Therefore camels behave in a way that makes them barely suitable for work, which means humans don't expect them to do more than the bare minimum while still providing food and shelter and the camels are left with plenty of time to themselves.

Contrast ThePerfectionist, who refuses to under-perform in anything. For the school version, contrast TheBGrade, where a character finds even a B to be too low. Compare SecondPlaceIsForWinners, DecliningPromotion, and DoWellButNotPerfect. May overlap with ObfuscatingStupidity, BrilliantButLazy, LaboriousLaziness and ProfessionalSlacker, ILetYouWin, and ThrowingTheFight. This could be caused by ThePerilsOfBeingTheBest, {{Dismotivation}}, or TallPoppySyndrome, or for the school variation, someone just being an ApatheticStudent.

* In an episode of ''Series/ModernFamily'', Haley does this when she has to bake cupcakes for school in order to trick her Mother into doing all the work. By the end of the episode, her Mother catches on and makes her bake the cupcakes by herself. The results are quite [[LethalChef lethal]], causing her brother's mouth to go numb, though it was implied she was still trying to pull this off.

* ''Manga/MedakaBox'': Kumagawa Misogi is described as someone who never, EVER wins. But as the story goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that most of his defeats are due to deliberate self-sabotage. With a crippling sense of defeatism that makes it impossible for him to even imagine himself "winning" (even though he actually does want to beat the "winners"), he instead devotes his energy towards "losing" in a certain way. Even in a situation where anyone else would be practically guaranteed victory, he'll always be able to find some way of securing his defeat.

** On the other hand, one could argue that if you hit it's easier to simply land lethal shots, while it's harder to manage to damage enough whitout killing, so counter-intuitively getting a deliberate assist might require more skill and luck than a complete kill.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'', Miles Morales' physics teacher at his prestigious new school, Brooklyn Visions Academy, shows him that he has completely failed a true-or-false test. However, she sees through it because the odds of getting every question wrong on such an exam is so statistically unlikely that the only way he could have answered them all wrong was if he knew all the correct answers and deliberately chose the wrong ones. Sure enough, Miles has been feeling out of his element at Visions and was trying to flunk out so he can [[IJustWantToBeNormal return to his comfort zone]] at his old school, but said teacher tells him otherwise and encourages him to not quit.

Well, not every character wants the spotlight of being at the top, the pressure of doing well, the expectations of others. They'd rather be average, or even below average. Often, as long as they can scrape by and fly under the radar, they don't care about doing better- and, if doing better would make then get unwanted attention, then doing worse is more beneficial.

** Erika studies really hard to specifically get third place during the end of semester exams. Why third instead of first? [[{{Fangirl}} Because Kaguya is always second and she wants her name to be listed right after it on the class ranking]].

* ''Literature/{{Greyfriars}}'': In one comic, Miss Stackpole has the means to take two of her students along on a vacation and decides to make it a contest: whoever does best in school the next few days gets to go. Bessie Bunter has no desire to spend any time in Miss Stackpole's company and so she sets out to deliberately do bad on a test. Thing is, all the intentionally incorrect answers she writes down are correct (and everything she thought was correct would've been incorrect) and she aces that test. Miss Stackpole equally doesn't want Bessie to ruin her vacation, so she arranges a running competition Bessie won't ever win. Bessie, aiming to lose, goes to take a nap in an open barn's haystack. Then it starts to rain and all the other students take shelter. Bessie wakes up to think it's evening already and rushes back to school through the rain to not be late for dinner, thus making her the winner.

** In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', student wizard Victor Tugelbend aims to fail his Final Exams every year - but only just. His aim is to fail by the slightest and most narrow of margins - so that he gets to remain a student in perpetuity. But he can't fail so completely that the University can then throw him out. His reason is that he has a trust fund allowing him to live in some comfort - provided he remains a student. The moment he graduates, the money goes. The moment the university throws him out, the money goes. Therefore he has to avoid getting a pass mark of 88% but not to let his mark drop below the threshold of 80% that triggers expulsion. It's a fine line.

* ''Krabat'' (Otfried Preußler version): The Master is a mage who gains his powers from the devil and as part of his contract has to sacrifice his best student every New Year's Eve. Juro is known as one of the worst students, but he is in fact the smartest. He knows very well what's going on and just how far the Master's magic reaches and purposely underperforms so not to end up dead. The Master is vaguely aware of Juro's deceit, but that doesn't make Juro any more suitable for the sacrifice and other attempts to get rid of him fail.

* In the last season of ''Series/TheWestWing'', a video of Leo's practice in the Vice Presidential debate gets leaked to the media showing him struggling (Leo is an experienced political operative, but a very raw ''politician''). The Santos campaign freaks out over how bad it looks, until the real debate occurs and Leo demolishes his opponent. He then reveals he deliberately performed poorly in practice and leaked the video himself to both lower media expectations and catch the Vinick campaign off-guard.

* Stephen from ''Webcomic/WeakHero'' is usually ranked around the 20's when it comes to exams- however, when he wants to make a point to Gray, he immediately shoots up to first place to demonstrate his hidden genius.

* Spud in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'' is revealed to a be a ChildProdigy in the second season of the series, but purposefully scores low as he is happy being lackadaisical and doesn't want any type of expectation put on him, especially due to an overbearing father. Considering that when Jake and Trixie trick him into actually scoring high, he nearly gets used by Jake's enemy Eli Pandarious, he's got a point.

** It's implied that Hayasaka deliberately keeps herself at exactly 114th place among the test ranking to avoid drawing attention to herself. Given [[LegacyOfService her line of work]], it's not like she'd have to get into a good college to ensure stable employment.

* ''Literature/{{Greyfriars}}'': In one comic, Miss Stackpole has the means to take two of her students along on a vacation and decides to make it a contest: whoever does best in school the next few days gets to go. Bessie Bunter has no desire to spend any time in Miss Stackpole's company and so she sets out to deliberately do bad on a test. Thing is, all the intentionally incorrect answers she writes down are correct (and everything she thought was correct would've been incorrect) and she aces that test. Miss Stackpole equally doesn't want Bessie to ruin her vacation, so she arranges a running competition Bessie won't ever win. Bessie, siming to lose, goes to take a nap in an open barn's haystack. Then it starts to rain and all the other students take shelter. Bessie wakes up to think it's evening already and rushes back to school through the rain to not be late for dinner, thus making her the winner.

** Defied by Aizawa in the Quirk Apprehension Test: he makes clear that if a student doesn't give his absolute all in the test, he will expel them on the spot. The fact that there are Quirks that can be dangerous (or at least extremely painful) to the user if used full-out doesn't matters, he considers this a "logical ruse" worth invoking for the sake of seeing what his students can do. Izuku ends up [[BodyHorror completely demolishing his arm]] fulfilling this request.

** Defied by Aizawa in the Quirk Apprehension Test: he makes clear that if a student doesn't give his absolute all in the test, he will expel them on the spot. The fact that there's Quirks that can be dangerous (or at least extremely painful) to the user if used full-out doesn't matters, he considers this a "logical ruse" worth invoking for the sake of seeing what his students can do. Izuku ends up [[BodyHorror completely demolishing his arm]] fulfilling this request.

* ''Literature/{{Greyfriars}}'': In one comic, Miss Stackpole has the means to take two of her students along on a vacation and decides to make it a contest: whoever does best in school the next few days gets to go. Bessie Bunter has no desire to spend any time in Miss Stackpole's company and so she sets out to deliberately do bad on a test. Thing is, all the intentionally incorrect answers she writes down are correct (and everything she thought was correct would've been incorrect) and she aces that test. Miss Stackpole equally doesn't want Bessie to ruin her vacation, so she arranges a running competition Bessie won't ever win. Bessie, not wanting to win, goes to take a nap in an open barn's haystack. Then it starts to rain and all the other students take shelter. Bessie wakes up to think it's evening already and rushes back to school through the rain to not be late for dinner, thus making her the winner.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': The Z-Fighters occasionally hold back to not stand out among normal people, but they always fail miserably because they are that much stronger. And can fly. In particular, Gohan is very proud of himself for holding back to appear as any other student when he goes to high school, oblivious to being the center of attention repeatedly for really not passing as an ordinary student.

* ''Literature/Greyfriars'': In one comic, Miss Stackpole has the means to take two of her students along on a vacation and decides to make it a contest: whoever does best in school the next few days gets to go. Bessie Bunter has no desire to spend any time in Miss Stackpole's company and so she sets out to deliberately do bad on a test. Thing is, all the intentionally incorrect answers she writes down are correct (and everything she thought was correct would've been incorrect) and she aces that test. Miss Stackpole equally doesn't want Bessie to ruin her vacation, so she arranges a running competition Bessie won't ever win. Bessie, not wanting to win, goes to take a nap in an open barn's haystack. Then it starts to rain and all the other students take shelter. Bessie wakes up to think it's evening already and rushes back to school through the rain to not be late for dinner, thus making her the winner.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', Adrian Veidt was always brilliant, but deliberately downplayed his intelligence in school to avoid unwanted attention.

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Tim intentionally does significantly worse than he easily could in gym, even failing certain exercises, to help maintain his secret identity.

* In the first ‘’Literature/SpySchool’’ novel, CynicalMentor Murray Hill ‘’could’’ be a brilliant student if he wanted to, but as he explains to the narrator, students with high grades are sent into the field and are always at risk of dying horribly, while students with middling grades are instead given (safe, well-paying) desk jobs. As a result, Murray makes sure to deliberately and conspicuously fail every class that he has. The entire school (save the narrator) are completely taken in by his facade, until the end, when [[spoiler: It turns out that Murray is TheMole and was also deliberately failing so he’d need tutoring from the RA and have the access to steal all of her files about the students and the school]].

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{XKCD}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/priorities.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[AltText You should start giving out 'E's]] [[https://xkcd.com/336/ so I can spell FACADE or DEFACED.]]]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'', Miles Morales' physics teacher at his prestigious new school, Brooklyn Visions Academy, shows him that he has completely failed a true-or-false test. However, she sees through it and reasons that the only way he could have answered them all wrong was if he knew all the correct answers and deliberately chose the wrong ones. Sure enough, Miles has been feeling out of his element at Visions and was trying to flunk out so he can [[IJustWantToBeNormal return to his comfort zone]] at his old school, but said teacher tells him otherwise and encourages him to not quit.