History Main / HiredToHuntYourself

* In the fourth of the ''Literature/{{Baccano}}!'' LightNovels, the infamous assassin Vino purchases the identity of retiring hitman Felix Walken for reasons which only really make sense to himself but involves having a legal identity under which to get married. Then an enemy of Vino's adopted family tries to hire "Felix" to kill Vino. HilarityEnsues.

* ''DeathNote'': L, the world's best detective, maintains several other detective identities. When someone hires the world's second- or third-best detective to uncover L's identity, they're really hiring him. Light also does this, joining the anti-Kira task force to put him in a position to better cover up the fact that he ''is'' Kira.

* In the EasyAmnesia episode of DonkeyKongCountry, DK ends up a pirate working for Kaptain Skurvy. After some decent plundering (Including the show's MacGuffin), Skurvy decides to get rid of 'Donkey Kroc' by sending him off to find...Donkey Kong. The minute DK leaves the pirates start laughing about the SnipeHunt.

* Early on in Ranma1/2, before Shampoo joined the regular cast, the amazon put Akane through forced amnesia to make her forget about Ranma. She agrees to give Ranma the cure if he does one thing for her- kill the female Ranma! (This was before Shampoo learned of Ranma's curse) Ranma gets her to compromise by changing the demand from 'kill' to 'beat up'.

* In ''Lobo vs. Mask'', Lobo ended up unknowingly hunting himself due to a time loop caused by the Mask.

* ''Breach''. Based on the RealLife story of Robert Hanssen (see below).

* The play ''Oedipus Rex'' is about Oedipus' attempt to hunt down the murderer of Laius, not connecting it with that time twenty years ago when he killed an old man he met on the road...

See also DetectiveMole.

* In ''{{The Departed}}'', being a remake, has the same setup.

* In ''{{The Departed}}'' Colin Sullivan is put in charge of finding the mole in the Massachusetts State Police [[spoiler: himself]].

* In the fourth of the ''{{Baccano}}!'' LightNovels, the infamous assassin Vino purchases the identity of retiring hitman Felix Walken for reasons which only really make sense to himself but involves having a legal identity under which to get married. Then an enemy of Vino's adopted family tries to hire "Felix" to kill Vino. HilarityEnsues.

* ''PushingDaisies'': In "The Fun in Funeral", Emerson brings Ned in on his latest case, investigating the death of a funeral director. Emerson knows full well that Ned killed (or "accidentally involuntarily manslaughtered") the funeral director [[EqualExchange when he brought Chuck back to life]], but he points out to Ned that the best way to cover it up is for them to take the case and make sure no one else solves it.

* In ''{{The Departed}}'' Colin Sullivan is put in charge of finding the mole in the Massachusetts State Police.

* Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who was spying for the Soviet Union, was at one point the head of a task force looking for a supposed Soviet penetration of the FBI--Hanssen himself.

* In ''TheGreenHornet'', Chudnofsky hires the Green Hornet via e-mail to kill Britt Reid. Kato gets the e-mail, and shows up (as the Green Hornet's sidekick) to rescue Britt from the villains, causing them to put the pieces together:

* In [[VorkosiganSaga ''Brothers In Arms'']], Admiral Naismith is hired to kidnap Lord Vorkosigan--which is quite easy for him since they happen to be the same person. [[spoiler: The client knows about his double identity and successfully uses the job to lure him into a trap.]]

* In the fourth of the ''{{Baccano}}!'' LightNovels, the infamous assassin Vino purchases the identity of retiring hitman Felix Walken for reasons which only really make sense to himself but involve having a legal identity under which to get married. Then an enemy of Vino's adopted family tries to hire "Felix" to kill Vino. HilarityEnsues.

* The play ''Oedipus Rex'' is about Oedipus' attempt to hunt down the murder of Laius, not connecting it with that time twenty years ago when he killed an old man he met on the road...

* In ''NoWayOut'', the CIA suspects that a murdered secretary was having an affair with a KGB agent and assign Kevin Costner's character to find out who it was. The problem being, ''he'' was the one having an affair with the secretary, and thus has been put in charge of finding evidence to implicate himself as a KGB sleeper agent. Complicating things further, he didn't kill the secretary, but he ''does'' work for the KGB.

-->'''Chudnofsky:''' ''Britt Reid'' is the Green Hornet!\\

* ''AScannerDarkly'': Fred, a narc, goes undercover as "Bob" to find a drug dealer. His superiors, who don't know his undercover identity so as to protect him from corrupt cops, tell him that Bob is their prime suspect (mistaking money he received for successful tips for money earned from the sale of illegal drugs) and assign Fred to spy on himself.

Sometimes a person might intentionally set himself up in this situation, using his position to destroy evidence and cover his tracks. Other times, he may not even realize it himself, in which case the discovery that he;s actually been hunting himself will be TheReveal.

* ''AScannerDarkly'': Bob, a narc, goes undercover as "Fred" to find a drug dealer. His superiors, who don't know his undercover identity so as to protect him from corrupt cops, tell him that Fred is their prime suspect (mistaking money he received for successful tips for money earned from the sale of illegal drugs) and assign Bob to spy on himself.

A person is leading a double life, and one of his identities is instructed to spy on, capture, or kill the other.

This can occur in a number of ways: When an organization discovers it has been infiltrated and TheMole is given the task of uncovering the spy; or when a superhero's SecretIdentity is instructed to find out the identity of his heroic alter-ego; or when an alias-using CareerKiller is hired to kill his civilian identity; or when a detective or police officer is assigned to solve a crime that he himself committed.

Someone in this situation may find himself having to maintain a careful balance: he can't actually kill/capture/unmask himself; but being too intentionally incompetent might either cause suspicion to fall on him or else get someone else assigned to the job -- someone who won't hold back from completing it.

Sometimes a person might intentionally set themselves up in this situation, using their position to destroy evidence and cover their tracks. Other times, they may not even realize it themselves, in which case the discovery that they've actually been hunting themselves will be TheReveal.

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* ''DeathNote'': L, the world's best detective, maintains several other detective identities. When someone hires the world's second or third best detective to uncover L's identity, they're really hiring him. Light also does this, joining the anti-Kira task force to put him in a position to better cover up the fact that he is Kira.

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* In ''Lobo Vs Mask'', Lobo ended up unknowingly hunting himself due to a time loop caused by the Mask.

* In ''Chasm City'' by AlastairReynolds, Tanner Mirabel is searching for Argent Reivich, who killed the woman he loved. Then it turns out that he ''is'' Argent Reivich, having overwritten his own memories with Tanner's. Then it gets even more complicated.

* ''{{Dexter}}'', as a serial killer who works for the police, is sometimes put in the position of having to investigate his own crime scenes -- the first instance of this is the Season 1 episode ''Return to Sender''.
* The ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Wolf in the Fold". When a murder occurs on the planet Argelius the chief city administrator Mr. Hengist takes charge of the investigation, and continues investigating as more murders take place. It later turns out that the creature inhabiting his body is responsible for the murders.
* In an episode of ''StarTrekVoyager'', an alien committed a crime and then erased his own memory of it. Afterwards, he worked so hard on solving the crime that he ended up revealing himself as the culprit.
* In the [[{{V-2009}} new V miniseries]], a Fifth Column member is chosen to co-head an FBI task force to track down the Fifth Column

* In ''{{Morrowind}}'' one minor side quest has a run-away slave who poses as a guide to the slave hunter hired to bring him back in. For bonus points, the guide uses a direct translation of the name he is wanted under, as only other members of the race (who obviously aren't going to help), the odd slave trader and an extremely intelligent PlayerCharacter know the language.

* In the ''SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Hall Monitor", [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick take it upon themselves to catch a maniac loose in Bikini Bottom, not realizing that said "maniac" was actually [=SpongeBob=] himself, wreaking havoc in his misguided attempts to help the citizens.

Examples:

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