History Main / FakeWeakness

* A small one appears in ''Literature/TheSalvationWar''. A group of human insurgents were wiping out small groups of demons and their outposts, but always retreated when the Grand Duke of the area came with his army, making him assume that the humans feared him and his presence would always win battles. The fact he was leading his force made him easy pickings in an ambush.
* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', Phase gets a fake weakness put on his powers testing results: dark chocolate, administered orally. So now he can have enemies try to stop him by bringing him delicious desserts (and, you know, find out who was paying off Third Platoon for that information). The one who fell for it? [[spoiler: Tisiphone, who admitted has the money for it, a genuine grievance with Phase, and serious psychological issues.]]
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', [[AwesomenessByAnalysis Tattletale]] realizes that the Simurgh, the most "human" of the Endbringers, is doing this. Simurgh appears to be a fifteen-foot-tall humanoid with wings sprouting asymmetrically all over her body, but Tattletale realizes that the body itself is of no use to Simurgh, as she's a powerful telekinetic and telepath and not even human. Instead, the center of her cognition and power is located in the main joint of her largest wing, the most well-protected point on Simurgh's body.

* Used in the musical version of ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'', where a rumor is perpetuated that [[spoiler: water will make Elphaba melt]], and [[spoiler:she]] [[RetCon uses it as a way to fake]] [[spoiler:her]] death.

* There was one ''ComicBook/XMen'' story where people discover ancient scrolls with rituals that would destroy ComicBook/{{Apocalypse}}. It turns out that they were created by Apocalypse himself, just to get people to try them out. The [[WesternAnimation/XMen '90s animated series]] used the same plot.

** A variation on this is actually exploited by Discworld vampires in general. While stakes, holy symbols, and sunlight can all reduce a vampire to dust, this is a fate they can, and eventually usually do, revive from with a simple drop of blood. There are, as it happens, more permanent ways to end a vampire's existance, and the de Magpyre's building a resistance to the more traditional methods caused the local villagers to experiment with such (usually culminating with separating the vampire's head from his/her shoulders). Turns out vampires remain susceptible, and encourage, the more traditional methods as a means of self preservation since humans easily outnumber them and are not tolerant of relentless predation.

* The party in ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'' have equiped themselves with all manner of [[ElementalRockPaperScissors fire-based weapons and spells for their battle with the boss of the ice cave]]. And then…

* ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': During the fight with Vehemence, he hits Maxima with an electrical attack and notices that all her strength is draining away. The cameras that are broadcasting everything live overhear him say that lightning drains her powers. The thing is, Maxima's weakness is purely tactical: She has the top-secret ability to swap her stats between strength, speed, armor, flight, and blasting power. Vehemence hit her with so much power that she was forced to dump everything into armor, leaving for NighInvulnerable but dropping her offense down [[StoneWall below the point where she could match him]]. After, when her superiors realized that people thought she was weak to electricity, they were happy to subtly encourage that rumor.

* As quoted above, the EvilOverlordList condones this sort of action.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': During the fight with Vehemence, he hits Maxima with an electrical attack and notices that all her strength is draining away. The cameras that are broadcasting everything live overhear him say that lightning drains her powers. The thing is, Maxima's weakness is purely tactical: She has the top-secret ability to swap her stats between strength, speed, armor, flight, and blasting power. Vehemence hit her with so much power that she was forced to dump everything into armor, leaving for NighInvulnerable but dropping her offense down [[StoneWall below the point where she could match him]]. After, when her superiors realized that people thought she was weak to electricity, they were happy to subtly encourage that rumor.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Spacetrawler}}'', Yuri gets captured by some not-too-bright alien mercenaries who intend to torture her but know nothing about human physiology. She pretends to be horrified at the prospect of eating chocolate or butterscotch, so the aliens duly try to torture her with these. In the following pages she is given more and more "tortures" of the same vein. [[spoiler:Things go south when her torturers decide to cut off her limbs instead.]]

-->'''Red Dragon:''' I'm the fire dragon of the ice cave. Grr.
-->'''Drecker:''' [BeatPanel] [[CurseCutShort WHAT THE F-]]
-->'''Karn:''' [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere That's it, I quit.]] [Party flees]
-->'''Red Dragon:''' Heheh… [[AsideComment It's amazing what some red paint can do!]]

* A small one appeared in ''Literature/TheSalvationWar''. A group of human insurgents were wiping out small groups of demons and their outposts, but always retreated when the Grand Duke of the area came with his army, making him assume that the humans feared him and his presence would always win battles. The fact he was leading his force made him easy pickings in an ambush.

* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', Phase gets a fake weakness put on his powers testing results: dark chocolate, administered orally. So now he can have enemies try to stop him by bringing him delicious desserts (and, you know, find out who was paying off Third Platoon for that information). The one who fell for it? [[spoiler: Tisiphone, who admitted has the money for it, a genuine grievance with Phase, and serious psychological issues.]]

* In Brandon Mull's ''[[Literature/{{The Beyonders}} Beyonders]]'' trilogy, Maldor [[spoiler: plants the Word- an ancient spell activator that would completely destroy him. It turns out that the Word is actually a fake. Maldor uses the hunt for the Word to not only send all of his enemies on a massive and dangerous wild goose chase, but is able to recognize the ones who survive as his actually dangerous enemies.]]

* Frequently employed by [[PlayingWithFire red dragons]] in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}''. They are well-known for being highly vulnerable to cold damage, which in and of itself would be a legitimate weakness and not this trope. Thing is, red dragons are intelligent enough to ''know'' how well-known this weakness is, and can easily access spells and magic items that grant protection against cold. Thus, most red dragons will actually take ''less'' damage from a cold attack than they would from something else, because their magical defenses reduce the damage more than their natural vulnerability increases it.

* ''Fanfic/EquestriaGirlsFriendshipSouls'':During her battle with Captain Starswirl, [[spoiler: Twilight]] attempts to fool him into believing her Schrift [[RealityWarper The Variable]] requires her to physically see her target in order to alter its variables as she desires in order to set up a decisive blow, when in reality she only needs to detect it with her spiritual senses. While he does suspect a trick, she's able to lead him on sufficiently with carefully-timed feints and fake limitations that when she finally goes for the finisher and seemingly misses, he lets his guard down upon believing she's goofed up and ends up taking a massive explosive arrow to the back. He congratulates her and [[WorthyOpponent admits she truly is impressive]] before activating his Bankai.

* ''Manga/JujutsuKaisen'': Panda is a [[{{Golem}} curse-based construct]], and the [[HeartDrive focal point]] of the energy contained therein is a weak point. Normally, someone could sense the flow of cursed energy to locate Panda's core, but he's able to control it to make it seem like it's somewhere else.

%%* [[spoiler:Skynet's EvilPlan]] in ''Film/TerminatorSalvation''.

* Subversion in ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'': the heroes were led to believe that they had to recreate the white light of creation to stop Nekron, but 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, Black Hand.)

* ''Fanfic/EquestriaGirlsFriendshipSouls'':
During her battle with Captain Starswirl, [spoiler: Twilight]] attempts to fool him into believing her Schrift [[RealityWarper The Variable]] requires her to physically see her target in order to alter its variables as she desires in order to set up a decisive blow, when in reality she only needs to detect it with her spiritual senses. While he does suspect a trick, she's able to lead him on sufficiently with carefully-timed feints and fake limitations that when she finally goes for the finisher and seemingly misses, he lets his guard down upon believing she's goofed up and ends up taking a massive explosive arrow to the back. He congratulates her and [[WorthyOpponent admits she truly is impressive]] before activating his Bankai.

* Xander in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5237318/1/Crush Crush]]'' pretends to have [[ExtraOreDinary powers over magnetism]] when he's actually a GravityMaster. This becomes a plot point when he's put before a KangarooCourt that has a TailorMadePrison for people with magnetic powers. Xander calmly crushes the cell holding him, then plays it off as manipulating the magnetic fields between atoms.

** The witchfinder Perspicacia Tick is herself a witch, hunting prospective witches for recruitment rather than for [[BurnTheWitch terminal]] purposes. She distributes a manual on witch hunting and disposal to the more intolerant villages, with tips like tricking the witch into complacency with a good meal and bed for the night, nullifying her magic with a silver coin in each boot, and leaving ''immediately'' after binding her with easily escapable knots and throwing her into the nearest lake.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': It can't be certain if Lavos [[ItCanThink was being deceptively intentionally]], but in the final stage of the battle against it [[spoiler:the [[AttackItsWeakPoint core you need to destroy]] is ''not'' the vaguely humanoid part in the center--that's just another part that will regenerate after being destroyed. The real core is the limb-like part on the right, which looks identical to the non-essential part on the left.]]

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/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: The weakness was very real, and [[{{Sabotutor}} deliberately taught]]. Once your master reveals himself as the BigBad, he proceeds to show you how to PROPERLY exploit the weakness in your character's style.]]

* Perhaps not the straightest example, but about halfway through ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'', Bowser flat out 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 the NintendoHard ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}} FES'' epilogue, The Answer, a lot of the bosses have a specific weakness. However, they also have the corresponding Dodge/Evade skill [[FakeDifficulty with an extremely higher percentage to evade said weakness than their names indicate]].

** The Bug-type, in practice: While the ElementalRockPaperScissors chart does indeed double the damage of Bug-type moves against Psychic-type mons, trying to actually use Bug as a Psychic-killer is a bad idea -- the type has three damaging moves (of which only Pin Missile even ''approaches'' being worthwhile), and the majority of its {{mons}} are half-Poison, a type which takes double damage from Psychic.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'': [[spoiler:Metroman]] pretends to be vulnerable to [[spoiler: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.]] This comes to bite Megamind in the ass later, as a trap made of the same stuff can't stop the rampaging [[spoiler:superhero-turned-villain Titan who had Metroman's powers.]]

** The new(ish) Count de Magpyre of ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'' added fake banishment rituals to several holy books. After those rituals fell out of use due to being completely ineffective, he and his family [[AcquiredPoisonImmunity built up a resistance]] to the standard vampire weaknesses instead.

* ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': During the fight with Vehemence, he hits Maxima with an electrical attack and notices that all her strength is draining away. The cameras that are broadcasting everything live overhear him say that lightning drains her powers. The thing is, Maxima's weakness is purely tactical: She has the top-secret ability to swap her stats between strength, speed, armor, flight, and blasting power. Vehemence hit her with so much power that she was forced to dump everything into armor, leaving for NighInvulnerable but dropping her offense down [[TheStonewall below the point where she could match him]]. After, when her superiors realized that people thought she was weak to electricity, they were happy to subtly encourage that rumor.

* ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'': During the fight with Vehemence, he hits Maxima with an electrical attack and notices that all her strength is draining away. The cameras that are broadcasting everything live overhear him say that lightning drains her powers. The thing is, Maxima's weakness is purely tactical: She has the top-secret ability to swap her stats between strength, speed, armor, flight, and blasting power. Vehemence hit her with so much power that she was forced to dump everything into armor, leaving for NighInvulnerable but otherwise largely helpless. After, when her superiors realized that people thought she was weak to electricity, they were happy to subtly encourage that rumor.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/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]].