History Main / FramedForHeroism

* Inverted in ''Anime/OnePunchMan''. Saitama kills the Deep Sea King Saitama in plain view of everyone, but makes it seem like it was actually the other heroes who defeated him. Claiming that they weakened the monster enough for him to swoop in and deal the final blow. [[ZeroApprovalGambit Sacrificing his own reputation]] by making himself look like a credit stealing jerk in order to ensure that everyone else will get the recognition they deserve.

* Played with in ''Snarfquest'', where an evil wizard whom Snarf is facing off with suddenly goes "Urk!" and dies. The humanoid characters assume that Snarf actually ''scared him to death'', but the readers learn that their gaggaleech companion (actually a highly venomous death leech) had secretly dropped onto the wizard's back and bitten him.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In the episode "The 42 Year Old Virgin" Stan reveals that he's never killed anyone, and that all the times he was praised for doing so were just fortunate accidents. His first ever kill was carried out by a mugger, and after he reveals his secret his latest kill (shown at the start of the episode) is shown to have been made ''by the exact same mugger.''

-->'''Wolf''': I did it!
-->'''Pigs''' (in unison): He did it!
-->'''Bugs''' (standing next to dynamite plunger): Eh, ''we'' did it!

* The downfall of The RedBaron may be this. It was long credited to a Canadian pilot, Arthur Roy Brown, but in recent years, reexaminations of the Baron's injuries and the events of that day indicated that he may have instead been killed by a bullet from an Australian machine-gunner.

* In Creator/TerryPratchett and Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/GoodOmens'', the character of Shadwell points an admonishing finger at a character who promptly vanishes in an explosion of blue light. This happens so often to him that he becomes convinced that his finger is the deadliest weapon known to mankind. In all cases, the explosions are due to there literally being an Angel nearby who is causing it.

** In ''Eric'' he gets summoned 'accidentally' instead of a demon by a teenage boy who wants three wishes granted. Normally Rincewind has the wish granting ability of a dead haddock but thanks to a powerful demon using him as a pawn clicking his fingers actually ''does'' things.

* ''GeminiMan'' (and probably other {{Invisibility}} series) do this a lot, with the invisible hero backing up someone less assuming in a BarBrawl.

* ''{{Trigun}}'': During Meryl and Millie's DayInTheLimelight, Vash takes care of a couple of baddies for them as payback for their help in a previous episode. Then there's an IrisOut on him as he complains about not having a bigger role in this story.

* In ''{{Okami}}'', Amaterasu does this to Susano constantly, to the point where it's a major surprise when Susano [[spoiler:reveals that he knows Ammy has been helping him, tells Ammy ''not'' to help him, and deals a serious blow with his stick unassisted.]]

** Unless I'm mistaken, that was planned. The prototype could only deflect bullets it knew were coming. So Mitchell distracted the clone so Daniel could get the drop on him.

[[folder:Film]]
* Happens in the Creator/JohnFord movie ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'', former trope namer. [[Creator/JimmyStewart Ransom Stoddard]] is a pacifist lawyer in a bad town in the old west. Throughout the film the outlaw and murderer Liberty Valance (Creator/LeeMarvin) constantly assaults and belittles him, only stopping from outright murdering the whole town due to the presence of the badass but uncaring [[Creator/JohnWayne Tom Doniphon]]. After Valance beats the town's eccentric newspaper man, Stoddard grabs a pistol and attempts to kill Valance on the town's main street. He misses the first five shots and is horribly wounded by the outlaw. [[spoiler:Tom Doniphon, witnessing the scene from a secluded spot, fires from an alley at the same time Stoddard does and]] kills Valance. The town only sees Stoddard who gets the girl and the glory, and later on becomes a Senator. [[spoiler:Doniphon dies bitter and alone after drunkenly burning down his own house]]. When Stoddard tries to set the record straight, the reporter replies "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact... print the legend.". In the final scene [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope Stoddard seems to be haunted by his breakout action and base of his career being nothing but a lie people keeps bringing up]]]].
* In ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'', Captain Miller starts shooting at a tank with a pistol, and the tank suddenly blows up. He stares at the pistol in shock for a moment before he sees the American P-51 Mustangs who really blew up the tank fly overhead.
* The Brazilian movie ''Lisbela e o Prisioneiro'' does this twice in the same scene, using a BaitAndSwitchGunshot to boot. Frederico is about to shoot Leleu, the camera cuts and a shot is heard. It's revealed that Lisbela shot Frederico. Later on, it's revealed that Lisbela's gun was in fact empty and Frederico's wife was the one who shot him.

* In ''Film/GhostbustersII'', Creator/RickMoranis's character Louis Tully, who has spent the film bumbling about, gets to the climactic battle, and clumsily fires up his laser stream just as the other guys take down the main villain Vigo. The crowd doesn't see them, and cheers and starts parading him around instead.
* The movie ''Film/{{Sahara 2005}}'' has a minor subversion at the climax. After Dirk Pitt and friends [[spoiler:shoot down the local warlord's helicopter with lucky shot from a Civil War era cannon, the enemy army surrenders while the heroes marvel that their plan actually worked. Realizing something's not quite right, they turn and see an entire (friendly) Toureg army positioned on the top of the cliffs behind them. The subversion is that while the army surrenders because of the Touregs, the heroes ''really did'' shoot down the helicopter with a 150 year old Confederate cannon]].

* In one of the ''LeftBehind'' books, Rayford attempts to fulfill the part in [[Literature/TheBible Revelation]] about TheAntichrist, [[spoiler: Nicolae Carpathia]], getting killed. After accidentally firing his gun and actually [[SaveTheVillain wishing he hadn't]], it turns out that [[spoiler:Chaim Rosensweig had actually stuck a blade through his back.]]

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
** The same thing happens to Rincewind in ''Interesting Times'' and ''Eric''.

* Happens in the Creator/JohnFord movie ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'', former trope namer. [[Creator/JimmyStewart Ransom Stoddard]] is a pacifist lawyer in a bad town in the old west. Throughout the film the outlaw and murderer Liberty Valance (Creator/LeeMarvin) constantly assaults and belittles him, only stopping from outright murdering the whole town due to the presence of the {{badass}} but uncaring [[Creator/JohnWayne Tom Doniphon]]. After Valance beats the town's eccentric newspaper man, Stoddard grabs a pistol and attempts to kill Valance on the town's main street. He misses the first five shots and is horribly wounded by the outlaw. [[spoiler:Tom Doniphon, witnessing the scene from a secluded spot, fires from an alley at the same time Stoddard does and]] kills Valance. The town only sees Stoddard who gets the girl and the glory, and later on becomes a Senator. [[spoiler:Doniphon dies bitter and alone after drunkenly burning down his own house]]. When Stoddard tries to set the record straight, the reporter replies "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact... print the legend.". In the final scene [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope Stoddard seems to be haunted by his breakout action and base of his career being nothing but a lie people keeps bringing up]]]].

* Happens in the Creator/JohnFord movie ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'', former trope namer. [[Creator/JimmyStewart Ransom Stoddard]] is a pacifist lawyer in a bad town in the old west. Throughout the film the outlaw and murderer Liberty Valance (Creator/LeeMarvin) constantly assaults and belittles him, only stopping from outright murdering the whole town due to the presence of the {{badass}} but uncaring [[JohnWayne Tom Doniphon]]. After Valance beats the town's eccentric newspaper man, Stoddard grabs a pistol and attempts to kill Valance on the town's main street. He misses the first five shots and is horribly wounded by the outlaw. [[spoiler:Tom Doniphon, witnessing the scene from a secluded spot, fires from an alley at the same time Stoddard does and]] kills Valance. The town only sees Stoddard who gets the girl and the glory, and later on becomes a Senator. [[spoiler:Doniphon dies bitter and alone after drunkenly burning down his own house]]. When Stoddard tries to set the record straight, the reporter replies "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact... print the legend.". In the final scene [[spoiler: [[DeconstructedTrope Stoddard seems to be haunted by his breakout action and base of his career being nothing but a lie people keeps bringing up]]]].

* ''ImAMarvelAndImADC'': The appears during the finale of the second season of After Hours. The Joker holds Harley Quinn hostage, and eggs Franchise/{{Batman}} and SpiderMan, the only two heroes left in the room, to shoot him with a gun he threw earlier at Batman. As the morals of the two prevent them from murdering anyone, the Joker prepares to leave; however, a gunshot is heard, and the Joker drops to the floor, seemingly dead ([[spoiler:though he isn't]]). Both Batman and Spider-Man are baffled, until they see ThePunisher, who had been imprisoned earlier on, holding the gun.

* In ''TheSimpsons'', Homer is confronted by [[strike: a mob]] ''the'' Mob in front of his house. After they're about to shoot him, each of them fall over, hit with an incapacitating gunshot. After Chief Wiggum arrives on the scene, Homer and Marge assume it was him. After he denies credit, the camera pans up to one of the windows in the house, [[spoiler: revealing Maggie holding an old rifle, barrel still smoking.]]

Not to confuse with FrameUp.

* The movie ''Film/{{Sahara}}'' has a minor subversion at the climax. After Dirk Pitt and friends [[spoiler:shoot down the local warlord's helicopter with lucky shot from a Civil War era cannon, the enemy army surrenders while the heroes marvel that their plan actually worked. Realizing something's not quite right, they turn and see an entire (friendly) Toureg army positioned on the top of the cliffs behind them. The subversion is that while the army surrenders because of the Touregs, the heroes ''really did'' shoot down the helicopter with a 150 year old Confederate cannon]].

* ComicBook/SpiderMan: ComicBook/NormanOsborn killing the Skrull Queen Veranke in ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion''. While the others have been battling for days, doing most of the dirty work, his team of [[{{Thunderbolts}} maniacs, criminals, and lunatics]] comes in and [[VillainWithGoodPublicity steals the show]]. What really makes the it a DownerEnding is that he kills the Skrull queen ''seconds'' before Wolverine was able to. Naturally, he was placed in charge of ''every registered superhero, the Avengers Initiative was renamed the Thunderbolts Initiative, and SHIELD was disbanded and replaced with HAMMER, which is also run by Osborn''.

* In the second ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' movie, Rick Moranis's character, who has spent the film bumbling about, gets to the climactic battle, and clumsily fires up his laser stream just as the other guys take down the BigBad. The crowd doesn't see them, and cheers and starts parading him around instead.

* In the second ''SakuraTaisen'' [=OVA=] series, there is a point where Li Kohran, in costume as a character she plays on the radio, faces down a mecha with a prop gun; her teammate Maria is actually the one who makes the shot.

* Variant occurs in ''Disney/TheLionKing''. Simba is trying to roar to scare off the Hyenas from the elephant graveyard. On his third try he suddenly lets loose with a loud, echoing roar.... Except it's [[PapaWolf his father coming to save him.]]

* In ''{{Okami}}'', Ameratsu does this to Susano constantly, to the point where it's a major surprise when Susano [[spoiler:reveals that he knows Ammy has been helping him, tells Ammy ''not'' to help him, and deals a serious blow with his stick unassisted.]]

* ''TheBoondocks'' has a rather strange subversion. In ''The Story of Catcher Freeman'', each of TheRashomon tellings of the story give Catcher credit for killing the slavemaster, when every possible witness saw first-hand that Thelma did it. Since she's dead, we can't know for sure if this is a DudeWheresMyReward.

* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', Farnese has her knights fighting Guts and getting slaughtered. Guts plows through them and charges Farnese who timidly holds out her sword in a feeble attempt to defend herself. Just as Guts reaches the point of her sword, the combined exertion from fighting an giant monster and then facing her knights causes him to collapse from exhaustion. The knights then cheer Farnese for single-handedly defeating the black swordsman.

* In a ''StarWars'' ExpandedUniverse novel, four fighter pilots are vastly outnumbered, so despite their superior skills, they are being worn down. After one's ship is damaged, he ejects. That particular pilot is also known as something of a gunslinger with a blaster (rivaling Han Solo for skills with a blaster pistol)...so in desperation, he draws his sidearm and fires at a fighter about to make a run on him. The fighter explodes. His commander makes a mental note to ask what kind of pistol he carries, when he sees that one of the other pilots was the one who took it down.