History Main / FakeWeakness

* Shoa Khan in mortal kombat does a taunt that makes him seem vulerable. Attack him during, and he'll painfulky counter attack.
* The player might be able to do that with certain charachters in StreetFighterAlpha . Stand just out of range, taunt, then strike them when they move into range. Works best with someone with long range like Vega (claw)

-->''Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace, screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts it at my face, my reaction will be 'Hmm...I think I need a shave.'''
--->'''EvilOverlordListCellblockB'''

* In ''NoMoreHeroes'', the boss Bad Girl will sometimes fall to the ground, seeming like a big opening for you to attack... [[TryingToCatchMeFightingDirty take a single swing at her while she's on the ground]] and she'll [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy parry, and the game will enter a cinematic of her beating you to death]]. Seems like a trap for gamers who used to bosses who periodically leave themselves vulnerable, right? Well, not quite - she actually has two "fall to the ground crying" animations. One leads to the instant kill, and the other genuinely ''is'' an opportunity to knock her senseless. The trick is to check her hands: If one's still on the bat, ''do not attack''.

** The final boss of the console ''GoldenAxe'' does the same thing

** The final boss of the console GoldenAxe does the same thing

* On one episode of''{{The Vampire Diaries}}'', Damon Salvatore spends indirectly sets up a dinner party to prove that [[spoiler: Mason]] Lockwood is a Werewolf. His ultimate plan is to force Mason to cut the dessert with a silver knife. [[spoiler: Mason]] avoids this by simply making an ass of himself and digging in to the dessert with his hands. Later, [[spoiler: Mason]] confronts Damon and gets right to the point, they both know each others secrets but they are not enemies and can coexist. Damon agrees, but then at the end of the episode, [[WallBanger stabs]] [[spoiler: Mason]] in the chest with the same silver knife. [[spoiler: Mason]] pulls it out and remarks, "You know, I think it was the werewolves who first started that whole silver rumor." He then warns Damon he has made an enemy. This doesn't do him much good as he doesn't live to see another full moon, since [[spoiler: Damon tortures him with Wolfs-bane and literally rips his heart out of his chest, killing him.]]

* Perhaps not the straightest example, but about halfway through ''PaperMario'', Bowser straight asks Peach about Mario's weaknesses. If Peach answers honestly, there will be several [[BossInMookClothing powerful]] enemies around the next game area, but if she tells Bowser that Mario is deathly afraid of healing items, he will take this at face value, and there will be several useful items scattered around the area instead.

* In ''NoMoreHeroes'', the boss Bad Girl will sometimes fall to the ground, seeming like a big opening for you to attack... [[TryingToCatchMeFightingDirty take a single swing at her while she's on the ground]] and she'll [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy parry and the game will enter a cinematic of her beating you to death]]. So in this case, go after the weak spot and you'll expose your own for an instant kill.
** She has two "fall to the ground crying" animations. One leads to that instant kill, and one genuinely ''is'' an opportunity to knock her senseless. The trick is to check her hands: If one's still on the bat, ''do not attack''.
* One enemy in ''FinalFantasyIV'' (found in the last dungeon) casts an EnemyScan on itself each turn. This is all it does. The scan shows you its HitPoints (a little over the 10000 Damage {{Cap}}) and that it's weak to lightning. Cast a lightning spell on it and while you do actually do more damage, it causes the creature to [[TurnsRed Turn Red]] and unleash a brutal counterattack.
** Though, anyone who believes an enemy called "Trickster" deserves what they get.

* Subversion in BlackestNight, the heroes were led to believe that they had to recreate the white light of creation to stop Nekron, but at least their first attempt only made him stronger leading the heroes to believe they'd fallen victim to this trope. Turns out they needed to free the white entity itself to do the job right (and resurrect Nekron's undead anchor, the Black Hand.)

* In the film ''Megamind'', [[spoiler: The hero pretends to be vulnerable to copper to fake his own death, because he has come to feel he and Megamind are in a rut and he wants to explore another career.]]

* One Animorphs book featured aliens with translucent skin and completely visible internal organs. When Jake has to fight them he realizes that no animal would evolve such perfect targets for a predator and deduces that they must be distractions. He hits one of aliens in the one empty spot and it drops almost instantly..

* On one episode of''{{The Vampire Diaries}}'', Damon Salvatore spends indirectly sets up a dinner party to prove that [[spoiler: Mason]] Lockwood is a Werewolf. His ultimate plan is to force Mason to cut the desert with a silver knife. [[spoiler: Mason]] avoids this by simply making an ass of himself and digging in to the desert with his hands. Later, [[spoiler: Mason]] confronts Damon and gets right to the point, they both know each others secrets but they are not enemies and can coexist. Damon agrees, but then at the end of the episode, [[WallBanger stabs]] [[spoiler: Mason]] in the chest with the same silver knife. [[spoiler: Mason]] pulls it out and remarks, "You know, I think it was the werewolves who first started that whole silver rumor." He then warns Damon he has made an enemy. This doesn't do him much good as he doesn't live to see another full moon, since [[spoiler: Damon tortures him with Wolfs-bane and literally rips his heart out of his chest, killing him.]]

* One Animorphs book featured aliens with translucent skin and completely visible internal organs. When Jake has to fight them, he realizes that they must be distractions and aims for the one clear spot, which takes them down.

* One enemy in ''FinalFantasyIV'' (found in the last dungeon) casts an EnemyScan on itself each turn. This is all it does. The scan shows you its HitPoints and that it's weak to lightning. Cast a lightning spell on it and while you do actually do some damage, it causes the creature to [[TurnsRed Turn Red]] and unleash a brutal counterattack.

* This trope is inverted by Archer from ''FateStayNight'' in the "Unlimited Blade Works" route when he gets into a fight with a 'not-holding back' Lancer. Lancer attacks and blocks faster than Archer can react, so Archer spends the entire fight on the defensive and creates intentional weak points in his defense in order to predict where Lancer will attack next in advance and block the attacks ahead of time. These are not fake weaknesses, however -- Archer comments to himself how, if he misses a single block, he'll end up ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice. Without these weak points he'll die a certain DeathFromAThousandCuts instead. [[spoiler:Archer's objective isn't to win anyway, it's merely to drag out the fight long enough for the heroes to defeat Caster.]]

* This trope is employed in what is probably the most awesome manner conceivable by Archer from FateStayNight, who, in one of his battles with Lancer, who is attacking at speeds faster than almost anyone can track, creates fake weaknesses and openings in his fighting style in order to control Lancer's movements and keep the servant with superior stats from getting the upper hand.
* Subverted in JadeEmpire, where multiple characters throughout the first two thirds of the game will comment on how your character seems to have a flaw in his/her fighting style that they distracted themselves trying to exploit while you whupped their asses. All of them conclude that it is merely a clever ruse and compliment your master for such ingenuity in teaching you. [[spoiler: Thing is, once your master reveals himself as the BigBad, he proceeds to show you how to PROPERLY exploit the weakness in your character's style]].

* One episode of ''The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy'' was set in a dystopian future where Mandy, now a giant slug-thing, rules the world and keeps around clones of Billy to keep her company. This troper doesn't remember many of the specifics, but Mandy had slaves working in cinnamon mines and claimed that it was the source of her power. TheResistance tried to overthrow Mandy by using the culinary opposite of cinnamon and it turned into this trope.

* This is mostly secondhand information, but there was one ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}'' story where people discover ancient scrolls with rituals that would destroy Apocalypse. It turns out that they were created by Apocalypse himself, just to get people to try them out.
** It's not from the comic, but from an episode of the AnimatedSeries of the 1990s.
*** [[OlderThanTheyThink You're bo]][[TakeAThirdOption th right]].

* In the ''MonsterHunter'' series, the Gypceros will sometimes stagger and fall to the ground as if dead, only to trash about moments later, most likely causing damage to any player that had attempted to move in to carve the corpse up.