Horrible Judges of Character in Visual Novels.
- From the Ace Attorney series:
- Will Powers from the first two games has trouble believing who the real culprit is in both cases 1-3 and 2-4, because the two of them, as well as Jack Hammer, who tried to frame Powers for a murder Hammer intended to commit, are people he trusted as coworkers. He's not very good at seeing the bad in people.
- Iris from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations is thought of this way by Edgeworth after she calls Maya "strong and reliable" and Larry "sincere and hard-working," although they can be described as these under certain circumstances. She also trusts her murderous twin sister Dahlia Hawthorne despite the numerous examples of Dahlia abusing this.
- The same game gives Phoenix (normally a pretty good judge of character) a moment of this in his past, when he insists that his girlfriend Dahlia can't possibly have murdered a guy and planned on murdering him, no matter how damning the case Mia makes against her. He's really just confused because he didn't realize that Dahlia and Iris had pulled a Twin Switch on him; the girl in the court was the real Dahlia, but the girl Phoenix dated was actually the Sheep in Sheep's Clothing Iris.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
- Klavier Gavin has a problem with some combination of this trope and terrible luck with friends, as his older brother Kristoph is the Big Bad, and his bandmate Daryan is the Arc Villain of case 3, and in both cases he trusts them deeply and implicitly and is reluctant to prosecute them until the evidence becomes damning. The reason he made a good Unwitting Pawn for Kristoph to get Phoenix disbarred is because Klavier trusted his brother enough to not ask how Kristoph knew the diary page was forged, and why he was acquainted with the forger. Given Klavier is an idealistic young man that was mentored by Too Good for This Sinful Earth Constance Courte, it's not hard to imagine why he sees the good in everyone.
- In the second case, there's Wocky Kitaki, who makes life difficult for Apollo because for all his tough talk about being a gangster, he's really quite naïve and fully trusts his fiancée and former nurse Alita Tiala no matter how obvious it is that she's a Gold Digger and the real killer. The individual in question chides him for not having realized what should have been obvious to him.
- Case 03: True Cannibal Boy: Although Lily is rightly suspicious of Marty, she ends up trusting Jade more over the course of Case 03 because the latter took a near fatal attack from the Cannibal Boy in her place. Unfortunately, Jade betrays her anyways and helps Marty kill her.
- Cardia in Code:Realize, due to her isolation and limited interactions with other people, genuinely trusted a group of random thugs who claimed they can reunite her with her friends after she gets separated from Lupin and Impey during her arrival in Steel London. Thankfully, Victor happened to come across them when they were about to attack Cardia and helped her escape.
- Danganronpa:
- Jin Kirigiri, the headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy prior to the games' events, had a problem with this; he wanted to nurture the talent of his Super High School Level students, but had a tendency to look at the talent and overlook that said talented students were often completely batshit crazy. This is the guy who admitted a Serial Killer and covered up for a student bombing the gym. And the Steering Committee was even worse — they were the ones who admitted the student who would go on to mastermind the Tragedy over Jin's head, because they knew he'd refuse the person for being too unstable.
- A more light-hearted variant happens in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair when the students are discussing why Byakuya dove under the table during a blackout. Keep in mind that Byakuya has pretty much no patience for humor, and the Ultimate Imposter, who was impersonating him at that time, consistently emulated Byakya's seriousness.Akane: Obviously he was hidin' so he could surprise us. That dude was always a big jokester.
Kazuichi: The hell he was! You seriously couldn't tell what kinda person he was!?
- Fate/stay night: "Hi, I am Kirei Kotomine. I am emotionless except when amused by the discomfort of others. I'm a Jerkass, I make fun of you, and I act really suspiciously." Yet everyone just seems to believe that he has nothing to do with what's going on, except Tohsaka. Even she just knows that he's not a nice guy. In "Heaven's Feel" up until the end Shirou doesn't really think of him as an enemy when he's quite blatant about not being on Shirou's side or even neutral or pretending he doesn't have a hidden agenda having to do with wide-scale destruction, although by that point Shirou just doesn't really care, seeing as how he needs his help in saving Sakura and Illya.
- Poor, poor dear Bazett...
- The prequel has Kirei be misunderstood by Risei Kotomine(his father) as well as by Tokiomi Tohsaka (Rin's father). The two of them enlist his help in a scheme that will result in a secret alliance between Kirei and Tokiomi, respectively the masters of Assassin and Archer, and Kirei goes along with their plans at first. However, he gradually becomes corrupted by spending time with Archer(Gilgamesh). After Risei's death, Kirei takes possession of the Command Seals Risei left for him in his dying moments, while wishing he could have killed Risei personally. Shortly after Tokiomi orders Kirei to leave Japan so Tokiomi can secure a temporary alliance with Irisviel, Kirei then makes a contract with Gilgamesh and fatally stabs Tokiomi In the Back with a dagger.
- In Hate Plus the Councilor of Security Old *Mute completely underestimates the danger Councillor Ryu poses, considering him a mere pawn and believing the real threat to security to be the peasantry. Justified in that he only became dangerous as a result of his contact with and due to the influence of Oh Eun-a, something Old *Mute wasn't aware of.
- Downplayed in Heart of the Woods. Madison "Maddie" Raines, the main character, finds Evelyn Fischer, the mayor of the town of Eysenfeld, rather intimidating from when she first meets her. Despite that, Madison seems to trust Evelyn more than her daughter Morgan(who invited Madison and Tara to Eysenfeld to investigate supernatural phenomena) partly because Madison doesn't believe in the occult and assumes Morgan is either lying or insane. All this changes after Evelyn uses her illusionary powers to lure Madison out into a blizzard, causing Madison to freeze to death and come back as a ghost with Abigail's help. After Abigail explains what happened, Madison quickly accepts that Evelyn is evil, and later apologizes to Morgan for doubting her.
- In Murder by Numbers (2020), Honor's mother Sharon thinks her abusive ex Ryan is perfectly nice and also thinks highly of the arrogant, abusive talk show host Dick Stanford. She also has no idea K.C. is gay and doesn't even get his name right.
