History Main / RevealingCoverUp

* ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Near the end of "A Canterlot Wedding, Part One", Twilight Sparkle's slanderous and unfounded claims that her brother's wife-to-be is an evil imposter has resulted in her friends, her brother and the princess losing their trust in her, leaving her a doubt-filled wreck. Instead of talking her into going back to Ponyville in shame, or just leaving her alone, the evil imposter decides the reveal her true nature and sends Twilight down to the dungeons, where she finds the real bride, realizes she was right all along, and organizes a breakout followed by a wedding interruption.

* The JackTheRipper conspiracy graphic novel ''FromHell'', and the real-life Prince Albert Victor-centric conspiracy theory it dramatizes, hinges on the monarch of the world's most powerful nation being so threatened by the possibility of unsubstantiated (though true) allegations from four London prostitutes that she has them all murdered.

** In the first movie, ''Film/DrNo'', the titular doctor's assassination attempts are what convinces Bond that Dr. No and his base are behind everything[[hottip:*: Alright, Dent's incompetence and Strangways' death helped]].

[[caption-width-right:339:"[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial No, I'm not a substitute for]] Creator/MichaelJFox, wherever did you get that idea?"]]

* This is a recurring theme in (and, in fact, often the entire basic plot of) many of ChristopherBrookmyre's books, notably ''CountryOfTheBlind'' and ''BoilingAFrog''. And ''BeMyEnemy.'' And ''QuiteUglyOne Morning''. Essentially, the crimes that catch the protagonist's attention are almost always attempts to cover up a previous and otherwise unnoticed crime.

* Subverted in the AndrewVachss Burke book ''Another Life''; Burke and crew have a scene blown up rather than burned down in order to erase evidence, and he rationalises it to another character by saying that in that bad neighbourhood, druggies' "experiments" going boom is normal, but arson is not.

** But is subverted in a rather interesting fashion in ''Discworld/{{Thud}}!'', when word is intentionally spread that a murder is ''not'' to be reported to the Watch, knowing that Vimes will find out sooner or later and come snooping around. The person who gave the order does this because he ''wants'' Vimes to unearth and stop the immoral activities of his superiors, which he himself is powerless to stop. (When Vimes works this out he's offended at the thought he might ''need'' tricked into being interested in a murder.)

[[caption-width-right:339:"[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial No, that isn't someone substituting for]] Creator/MichaelJFox, wherever did you get that idea?"]]

[[caption-width-right:339:"[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial No, that isn't the artist's son substituting for]] [[Film/BackToTheFuture Michael J. Fox]], wherever did you get that idea?"]]

[[caption-width-right:339:"[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial No, that isn't the artist's son substituting for Michael J. Fox]], wherever did you get that idea?"]]

* A RealLife example occurred with Creator/DataEast's ''Pinball/BackToTheFuture'' pinball machine. Michael J. Fox did not allow his likeness to be used for the game, so instead artist Paul Faris used his son as the model for Marty. To hide this fact, "Marty" is drawn on the backglass with his face covered by a pair of futuristic sunglasses -- which only serves to draw ''more'' attention to his non-resemblance to Fox.

* A RealLife example occurred with Creator/DataEast's ''Pinball/BackToTheFuture'' pinball game. Michael J. Fox did not allow his likeness to be used, so instead artist Paul Faris used his son as the model for Marty. To hide this fact, "Marty" is drawn on the backglass with his face covered by a pair of futuristic sunglasses -- which only serves to draw ''more'' attention to the off-model Marty.

* The publishing company behind the ''HarryPotter'' books, in their rush to snuff out leaks, may be confirming the authenticity of said leaks by issuing highly visible subpoenas to certain websites. If they allowed the leaks to persist, they might be indiscernible from the huge amount of fake spoilers being posted up.

* The ''{{Elementary}]'' episode "The Red Team" has a kind of double-layered version of this; the culprit's attempts to kill off the other members of a war games team that came up with a successful plan to attack New York (since he doesn't want the plan to be exposed to terrorists) not only alerts Sherlock to the targets, but also leads him to deducing what the attack plan was.

** Another notable one at the end: [[spoiler: the photographs given to the students by Monobear all have Junko's face obscured. This is a key part of the final trial.]]

* In ''TheXFiles Fight the Future'', in order to cover up the deaths of five people exposed to an alien virus, the Conspiracy sticks the bodies into a building in downtown Dallas and blows it up trying to get them classified as victims of a bombing, which of course attracts Mulder and Scully's attention, instead of dumping them in the ocean or incinerating them or any of the other million ways a government could get rid of a few bodies without Mulder and Scully ever knowing that anything was going on.

-->-- ''[[FatherBrown The God Of The Gongs]]''

* The JackTheRipper conspiracy graphic novel ''From Hell'', and the real-life Prince Albert Victor-centric conspiracy theory it dramatizes, hinges on the monarch of the world's most powerful nation being so threatened by the possibility of unsubstantiated (though true) allegations from four London prostitutes that she has them all murdered.

* In {{XSGCOM}}, the SGC are being threatened with the public figuring out what's going on behind the scenes. The truth is that Anubis has attacked Earth but they obviously can't tell the public that. So instead of trying to cover up the attack, they pull out a unique version of SarcasticConfession, ''[[BatmanGambit posing the aliens as coverup of something else and leaking THAT out to the public in order to make the aliens appear as just another conspiracy theory]]''. And it works!
* In HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality, Harry explains this is why he doesn't simply deny the crazy rumours about him which ''aren't'' true.
* ''DeathNoteEquestria'': At one point, [[VillainProtagonist Twilight]] gets a pony killed in front of the cameras to give herself an alibi. The problem is, she needed to mind-control the reporter to make sure the cameras get there. The reporter was supposed to die later and be overlooked by investigators... except that having her death already assigned, she is now impossible to kill ahead of schedule. This complicates matters immensly when she gets drawn back into the plot due to unforseen circumstances.

** In another Bond example, the scheme to steal nuclear weapons in ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'' would have had a greater chance to succeed if a SPECTRE agent hadn't tried to off Bond while he was on leave and alerting him that something was up. Said SPECTRE agent was then killed for getting Bond's attention, or at least for failinf to kill Bond.