Make It Look Like a Struggle

Mal: The leg is good. It'll bleed plenty, and we avoid any necessary organs.
Payroll Guard: I was thinking more like a graze...
Mal: Eh, you don't wanna make it seem like you just gave up.
Payroll Guard: No, I get that.

— Serenity (2005)

The Hero needs a MacGuffin, or simply an escape. Someone is supposed to prevent it... but doesn't really want to. Or simply doesn't want to fight The Hero. To avoid being punished for aiding, the guard has to pretend they tried to resist, but were defeated. This generally means that the guard will be tied up and/or smacked around a bit to make it look genuine. This is generally somewhat Played for Laughs, especially when the hero takes it upon themselves to do this rather than their ally suggesting it. Often involves Tap on the Head.

Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy may include the prisoner doing it; The Infiltration may put the undercover participant in either or both roles. Apologetic Attacker and Hit Me, Dammit! are to be expected. May involve delays if the "attacker" Wouldn't Hit a Girl or has other such restrictions and has to circumvent or get over it. Compare Passive Rescue (which may overlap, if the guard provides the means to be taken "hostage" or otherwise overpowered) and Wounded Gazelle Gambit.

Not to be confused with Make It Look Like an Accident, which is about covering up a murder by disguising the cause of death.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• At one point in Inuyasha, Kagura is forced to pretend to fight Inuyasha so that Naraku's wasps will not get suspicious, but she's grown to detest Naraku so much that she doesn't put any force at all in her wind attacks and lets Inuyasha reach Naraku easily.
• Subverted in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz: Heero asks Duo to punch him as hard as he can; Duo happily obliges, and Heero punches him back twice as hard, knocking him out.
• In One Piece, during the Impel Down Arc, Buggy and Mr. 3 are attempting to escape Level 4 by going up the stairs where Hannyabal, the guard that they believe to be weakest, was guarding. Hannyabal, wanting to get promoted, purposefully lets Buggy and Mr. 3 go up, hoping to blame Magellan later and get his job. However, Mr. 3 and Buggy think that it's a trap, so it results in them getting brutally beaten up when they try to preemptively attack the guards.
• In episode 6 of Samurai 7, this is done with a mechanic whose been aiding the group. The way it's shown illustrates the personalities of the characters—Kambei shows he's actually kind of nice beneath the surface as he immediately starts tying up the guy, telling him he'll thank him later. Boisterous Bruiser Kikuchiyo is the one who suggests giving him a punch or two.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In one story, the Beagle Boys infiltrate a museum hidden in sarcophagi. During the night, the entire collection is stolen by a rich collector, who then leaves the helpful guard tied up, telling him that he'll get his money shortly and that he's been "attacked by masked people".
• Empowered: Spooky invoked this trope at the start of her suicide run to save Mindf██k from Hell, spoofing the security systems at the HomeyCrib into recording her magically seizing Empowered by force when she was alone on monitor duty and making her hack the portal network when in reality she was begging for help. That plan went south when Emp insisted on coming along.
• Spider-Man: In an issue of Spider-Man's Tangled Web ^note Which focuses on the world around Spider-Man instead of the hero himself one of the employees of The Kingpin has had one of his criminal projects ruined by Spider-Man. He gets called in, by a low-level crook who recently messed up pretty badly as well. The guy shoots the driver, and goes up to the Kingpin. Kingpin expected him to shoot the driver (Because the employee was exemplary) and in return for making it look like a struggle, Kingpin assures his wife and child would not be touched. The guy unleashes Five Rounds Rapid into the Kingpin's chest who then proceeds to crush his employee's head in between his hands.
• Spirou & Fantasio: The short story "La Foire aux Gangsters" has one gangster taking pity on the kidnapped baby and giving him to Spirou. He then asks him to knock him out with a Tap on the Head; he barely registers the hit but gets a bump, so he tells Spirou it'll do.
• Ultimate Marvel: Captain America is told SHIELD can't go after Nuke. Specifically, he's told by Cap. Danvers that he shouldn't even think about going rogue and hunting down Nuke on his own.
  Cap: ...How real do you need it to look?
  Danvers: Pretty real.
  -one knockout punch later-
  Danvers: "Not that real, you jackass!"
• Superman: In the storyline Starfire's Revenge, the mooks of the titular queenpin stage a robbery with violence to lure Supergirl out. Starfire's conman Derek Marlowe asks their boss' henchmen to pull their punches while they are beating him up, but his "co-workers" happily reply their assault must look real.

Comic Strips

• Knights of the Dinner Table: In the "Men That Hack" story in issue #13, the group makes a complete mess of what should have been a routine investigation, and end up shooting their boss when called in to explain themselves. Brian declares that his character is wounding himself to invoke this trope and deflect blame from his character; Bob and Dave immediately follow suit.

Fan Works

• The Corrupted Innocent: Crowley does this when Deanna and Bela summon him to try and regain the Colt; having established what they want from him, Crowley removes the bullets from the Colt and tosses a box full of bullets to the two hunters (along with instructions on how to make more), and agrees to give them the Colt once he's received a few wounds to make it look like he tried to fight them off, on the understanding that they won't get the Colt if they kill him outright.

Film — Live-Action

• At the start of Against All Flags, the British naval officer played by Errol Flynn is flogged so he can pose as a common seaman who's deserted and infiltrate a pirate stronghold. It helps that the pirates recognise the 'signature' of the sadistic bosun who did the flogging, who likes to sign his name with the last few strokes.
• Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar: When Asterix and Obelix pretend to be a Gaulish prisoner and the legionary who captured him, respectively, Obelix decides to make the ruse more plausible by punching Asterix and "capturing" him in front of the Romans.
• The Batman (2022). When Batman gets hauled into Gotham police headquarters, Lieutenant Gordon realises he'll be arrested by the hostile officers and maybe even killed by a Dirty Cop who's on the scene. He slips Batman a key and says to knock him out and run for it, which Batman does. Later Gordon gripes that he might have pulled his punch—Batman replies that he did pull his punch!
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. When Butch and Sundance go to see their friend Sheriff Bledsoe, he insists on their tying him up and gagging him so there's no chance of him losing his job if anyone saw the two criminals entering his home.
• For a Few Dollars More. When the Man With No Name kills all of Ramone's henchmen who were supposed to help him create a diversion, he returns to Mortimer and they argue over what course of action to take next. When the Man With No Name says he's returning to Ramone's gang with a story about how everyone else was killed in an ambush, Mortimer shoots him in the neck, grazing him with a light but painful wound. He then tells the Man With No Name that if he goes back to Ramone with a story about how everyone was killed but he doesn't have a scratch on him, Ramone will never believe it. The neck wound might help sell the story.
• Force 10 from Navarone. After Maritza kills the two Nazi guards, she demands that Barnsby hit her to make it appear that he and Mallory attacked her and got away. Barnsby apologizes and hits her weakly. She berates him and orders him to hit her harder. Mallory suddenly punches her hard and knocks her out.

  Marta: Do you expect me to go back there with my hair neatly combed? Hit me!

• In the Get Smart movie, Maxwell is helped escape by Bruce and Lloyd and tells them that he has to punch them out to make it look like a struggle. He makes a fake blow at Bruce and Lloyd faints when he keeps thinking about blood.
• Ghost Dog in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai had to shoot his former boss in the arm, to avoid suspicions from the rest of mafiosi when they both survive the encounter.
• A villainous version in Ice Station Zebra. The Mole tells an American army officer to beat him with a crowbar so he can be shot in 'self defense'. The officer is incredulous that he would go along with this plan, but the mole points out that he's the type to die fighting. Instead of reaching for the crowbar, the officer attacks him directly, eventually gaining the upper hand until he's shot dead by the hero under the assumption that he is The Mole.
• In Independence Day, Steve Hiller "borrows" a helicopter to find his girlfriend. One soldier catches him and draws his pistol, ordering Hiller out. Hiller just gives him a look and asks if he really wants to shoot him, which makes the soldier lower the gun. As he's taking off, Hiller goes, "Look, just tell 'em I hit you." The soldier is quite a bit bigger than Hiller's character, making his "you shittin' me?" look particularly amusing.
• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Mere minutes before his Mercy Lead runs out, John Wick goes to a Back-Alley Doctor for help stitching up a wound. To avoid persecution for helping an Excommunicado fugitive, the doctor hands Wick a derringer and tells him to make it seem like he was forced at gunpoint. He asks Wick to shoot him in a non-fatal area, carefully instructing where to place the bullet so it doesn't hit anything vital. After Wick does so, the doctor then realizes one might not be enough so asks John to shoot him again. Both times Wick shoots before the doctor has finished speaking, placing the rounds exactly where required. It apparently works: the doc is not shown suffering retaliation for helping him, unlike the Bowery King and the Ruska Roma matriarch.
• In The Lavender Hill Mob, Holland wants Lackery and Shorty to tie him up and rough him up to make the robbery look convincing. However, they have to flee as the police approach, having only had time to bind, gag and blindfold him. Holland has to finish the job by rolling in the dust, tearing his clothes on a hook, and falling in the river (which was definitely not part of the plan).
• In The Lobster, David tranquilizes the maid to cover up her collaboration.
• Subverted in Max Manus. Max escapes from hospital with the help of a nurse, who tells Max to hit her. Although he obligingly gives her a black eye (after a grateful kiss), the Gestapo aren't fooled and arrest her anyway.
• In The Mechanic (2011), when he realizes Bishop has lured him to his own death, Harry grabs his gun and points it at Bishop, only to shoot his own car instead to make it look like he didn't die without a fight.
• This happened in Minority Report when the protagonist's former colleagues allowed him to escape.
• In National Treasure Ben duct tapes his father to a chair in his house so that the FBI won't arrest him for aiding a fugitive.
• A variation in Ocean's Eleven: Benedict puts Danny Ocean in a room with a thug. Turns out the thug is actually on Danny's side, and he beats on the furniture to make it sound like he's beating the crap out of Danny while Danny himself escapes the room and joins in the heist. Later on, he returns to the room and the thug beats him up for real, making his alibi complete.
• One Foot in Hell: After shooting the bank manager and the cattle buyer, Mitch has Stu wing him in the shoulder so it will look like he was trying to stop the bank robbery rather than a part of it.
• The Phantom (1943): Villainous version; the leader of spy ring is posing as an ally to the heroes, and at one point has a meeting with one of his underlings, at the end of which he has the underling tie him up to preserve his cover.
• Punisher: War Zone. Detective Saffiotti arrests Frank Castle at gunpoint, only to give him his own car to escape as the NYPD is sympathetic to Castle's cause. In a variation on this trope, Saffiotti then punches himself in the face rather than telling Castle to do it (which is shown to be no less painful) so his partner won't realise what happened. Ironically his partner is later shown to be secretly aiding Castle as well.
• Star Wars: After betraying the First Order and helping out the Resistance in The Rise of Skywalker, General Hux asks Finn to graze his arm with a blaster as they leave to make it look like Hux was forced to help them. Finn shoots him in the leg instead. Either way, it doesn't work; General Pryde is too smart to fall for it and just shoots Hux dead before reporting to Kylo Ren that he found the spy.
• Discussed in Serenity (2005): the guard inside a vault the crew are robbing surrenders when Jayne fires a burst in his direction, then later Mal talks to him about shooting him nonfatally so he doesn't lose his job over it. It doesn't happen, because the arrival of a shipload of Reavers prompts Mal to have the guard round up everybody upstairs and bring them into the vault to hide out.
  Mal: The leg is good. It'll bleed plenty, and we avoid any necessary organs.
  Payroll Guard: I was thinking more like a graze?
  Mal: Eh, you don't wanna make it seem like you just gave up.
  Payroll Guard: No, I get that.
• Subverted in L.A. Confidential. The police have muckraking journalist Sid Hudgens tied to a chair and are beating him up for information. This is shown to be fake when Sid complains (after the man they are deceiving has left the room) about them not pulling their punches. Instead of untying him however, he's smothered to death.
• SAS: Rise of the Black Swan. Tom Buckingham is hiding under a hijacked train and unscrews the toilet so he can rescue his girlfriend Dr. Hart. Hart refuses to leave the wounded and insists Tom save the child she's treating instead, then tells him to knock her unconscious. As Tom is a Sociopathic Hero he has no issue with buttstroking her in the face.

Literature

• Artemis Fowl: In The Opal Deception, Mulch Diggums has been arrested at the Tara shuttleport for escaping from a police transport. The officer sent to interrogate him is Chix Verbil. Mulch persuades Chix to let him escape by informing him of the dire situation: "Opal Koboi is back." He knocks Chix out so he doesn't get in trouble with the Lower Elements Police while escaping.
• In the Discworld book Monstrous Regiment, after the female soldiers knock out one of the two guards and try to escape, the other guard says this:
  "Would you mind giving me a whack on the head too? Only it looks like I didn't put up a fight against a bunch of women."
  "Why don't you put up a fight? We're only a bunch of women."
  "I'm not crazy!"
• In Dragon Bones, Ward uses that method, but in an inversion, it is he, the hero, who is hit over the head to make him look as if he was unconscious. He helpfully bows down a bit, as he's so tall it would otherwise be difficult to hit him over the head. The person who hits him is a bit angry at him, and therefore he doesn't have to pretend unconsciousness.
• In the Vicious Circle, Felix Castor and a guard go in to Rafi's room, and Felix offers to make it look like a struggle. The guard was sick of the job anyway and declines, knowing he'll be fired.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore knocks out Shacklebolt, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, along with another Auror when the Ministry tries to arrest him, so it won't look suspicious while he makes his escape.
• In The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman, the soldier who assists Farrell and Mrs Pollifax in their escape attempt insists that they tie him up so he won't be suspected, and offers helpful advice on where best to hit him on the head to render him unconscious without doing permanent damage.
• It's a Troll tradition in Myth Adventures — the unique method of talking secrets publicly by making a spectacle of fighting. Because in a few seconds after trolls begin to punch and wrestle there's usually no one close enough to overhear quiet speech. With an added bonus of advertisement — trolls tend to be hired as a muscle.
• In one of the Night Watch (Series) books the protagonist is going to pass the guard. He is one of the Others, thus so absurdly overpowered a human doesn't really stand any chance against him, simply because he would just mind control him into letting him go. Though there's a tricky rule of balancing stuff: if the good guys cast some magic, the bad guys get a right to do that. So he decides to go take a Refuge in Audacity, since the guard knows he's the Other.
  "Dude, at least have decency to give me a black eye."
  "Nah, I'm in a hurry, do that yourself."
• No one but President by Lev Gursky. The escaped abductee apologized to an innocent who noticed him about the upcoming Tap on the Head. The innocent, being in an empty theater box viewing a spectacle he hated (because of his vow to Fate for getting away from another trouble), only asks to be knocked out till the end of the show, if possible.
• In Renegades, when Nova (who's working as a Double Agent) has to arrest her fellow Anarchist Ingrid, she only cuffs one of her hands, then tells her to free herself as to make it look like Nova made an actual effort to detain her.
• The Stand: Just before the novel opens, Lloyd and Poke made a deal with a small-time drug runner to split the profits on some marijuana he was supposed to be couriering for the Mafia, and they tied him up and bruised him so he could pretend it was stolen. Then Poke wonders if he can keep a secret, and (as will become a pattern with him) decides that Murder Is the Best Solution.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • In the novel Dark Mirror, Troi stuns mirror!Worf so that he won't be executed by the Empire for treason after he aids them in escaping.
  • In the novel The Romulan Prize, the Ambimorphs of Hermeticus II make it look like an old Federation starship defeated a prototype Romulan warbird as part of their plan to convince the Romulan government not to mass produce the new warbirds.
• Star Wars Expanded Universe:
  • Ahsoka has an unusual example: R2-D2, after agreeing to help the title character sneak onboard the Tantive IV to see Bail Organa, activates a circuit making it look like she deactivated him with a shocker. It's unusual because ultimately, everyone involved is on the same side.
• The Tomorrow War by Alexander Zorich. When a desperate employee running from Peace & Love Incorporated hijacks a freighter ship, the navigator sets up a jump quickly, because she isn't enthusiastic about having corporate security assault the ship, then staying in detention while it's all sorted out if she survives the cross-fire — she's hurrying to a wedding. She only insists that a pirate strike her with a pistol handle — on her cheek-bone, so that it will be visible.
• Played for Black Comedy in Declare when British spy Andrew Hale is hauled into a Lebanese police station on trumped-up charges so The Handler can brief him. Meanwhile a man fitting Hale's description is undergoing a mock interrogation so the Soviets won't be suspicious. Apparently they're not being very gentle about it, as a policeman keeps interrupting the briefing to inflict the same injuries on Hale.
  Handler: We better wrap things up before they break the poor man's legs.
• Defied in the The Wheel of Time novel The Dragon Reborn. Egwene, escaping an order of women who turn magically-gifted women into slaves, leaves her captor restrained by the control collar that was used on her. The woman, who knows that the collar only works on those who have some magic, begs for this trope in vain; Egwene leaves her to be discovered and probably enslaved herself.

Live-Action TV

• On 24, while Jack is undercover with terrorists attacking CTU, he allows a hostage to escape but cuts his own scalp to make it appear he had been knocked out.
• Better Call Saul: This happens to Nacho twice to hide the fact he is forced to act as The Mole for Gus.
  • The first time is when Gus forcibly recruits him in his secret war against the Salamancas. He's driven out into the desert, his car and the corpse of his partner are riddled with bullets, and Nacho himself is shot once in the shoulder and once in the gut before he's allowed to call for help, to ensure it looks convincingly like a random drive-by shooting that Nacho barely escaped from.
  • Nacho is on the run after his role as a rat is uncovered by the cartel (although not the fact he was Gus' rat), and he eventually makes it back from enemy territory and is "rescued" by Gus' men once Gus promises him that no harm will come to Nacho's father as long as he cooperates. However, before Nacho is led to his execution, Gus wants him beaten up first because "he looks too pretty", and Gus doesn't want the other cartel members to get suspicious about Nacho being his rat by the fact he's uninjured.
• ''Burn Notice": One episode has Michael posing as a captive at an interrogation site to get information out of a human trafficker. To make it look like he was beaten during interrogation, he has Fiona and Nate beat up his suit while it is hung from a punching bag and hit him in the face a few times. Later in the same episode, Michael and Nate stage a fight to make it look like Michael and the trafficker have escaped, while Michael explains in a voice-over how to appear to beat someone up far more badly than you actually are.
• On Blade: The Series, Blade and Krista plan for Krista to win the trust of vampire lord Marcus by delivering a rare artifact. Knowing there's no way Marcus will buy Krista got away from Blade without a scratch, Krista actually has Blade cut off a hand and an eye to sell a huge fight (as a vampire, she grows both back but it's still painful). Given this is Blade, Marcus just thinks Krista got off lucky as he buys the story.
• Doctor Who: In "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", Benton is told to take the Doctor into custody. Once Yates has gone, and Benton has ordered the other soldiers away, comes this exchange:
  Benton: Right then, Doctor, you'd better get busy.
  Doctor: What?
  Benton: You'd better start overpowering me, hadn't you. You know, a bit of your Venusian oojah?
  Doctor: Thank you, Sergeant Benton.
  Doctor: Are you ready?
  Benton: Yeah!
  [Benton tenses and shuts his eyes tight. The Doctor uses the pressure grip at the back of Benton's neck to put him to sleep.]
• The Expanse: Bobbie convinces one of Mao's men to help her instead of receiving the same beating she'd been giving to the rest of his mooks. As she's about to escape with his help, he asks if Bobbie could rough him up a bit first. She grins, and then we cut away.
• First Wave: In one episode, a sheriff and his deputy manage to capture Cade but also see evidence that Cade is trying to stop an alien invasion. The sheriff destroys the evidence because he doesn't want to deal with this and wants to pretend it's not happening. As the deputy escorts Cade back to his cell, he suddenly stops and tells Cade "Hit me". Cade does so and makes his escape.
• Galavant: Tasked with executing most of the protagonists, Gareth tells them to make it look like he was overpowered. Everyone hits him as hard as they can muster, with no success. He gives up and tells them to just go.
• Get Smart. The Chief wants KAOS to think that Maxwell Smart can be recruited as a Double Agent, so they pretend to have a fight in a bar that's under KAOS surveillance. The Chief is to arrest Max, who will then break a specially prepared Soft Glass bottle over his head. Unfortunately every time Max hits the Chief, the KAOS agent is distracted and misses it, so they have to keep asking the bartender for more bottles.
• Sawyer posed this offer to Sayid in the fifth season of Lost, to help Sayid avoid an execution without revealing that they actually know each other in the process. Sayid instead chooses to remain locked up.
• In an early episode of M*A*S*H, a soldier was captured trying to steal medical supplies from the 4077th. Col. Flagg then showed up to interrogate him. Instead of asking questions, Flagg told him to go, assuring him it wasn't a ploy to kill him for "trying to escape". Once the soldier was gone, Flagg trashed the tent he was being held in, broke a phone over his head, ran himself head-first into the door, then claimed the soldier jumped him and escaped.
• Midsomer Murders: In "Dead in the Water'', a jeweller conspires with some of his friends to rob his own store. The jeweller is left Bound and Gagged in a chair in the vault, but one of the robbers decides to make the scenario look more realistic by smacking him hard in the face.
• In "Witchbomb" from Motherland: Fort Salem, when Anacostia frees Scylla to keep her from being sent off to a maximum security prison and virtually certain death, she tells her they're going to need to make it look good. They stage a scene in which she leaves everything shattered and Anacostia knocked out on the ground.
• Person of Interest
  • A villainous version appears when the head of HR murders two people who are threatening to interfere with his plans, and then has one of his henchman shoot him in order to divert suspicion away from him.
  • In the pilot episode, Detective Fusco establishes his Butt-Monkey status when John Reese forcibly recruits him as an informant against his fellow Dirty Cops. After checking that Fusco is wearing a bulletproof vest, he shoots him in the chest. The crazy thing is that Reese had genuinely escaped from Fusco's custody, but the villains might have questioned why Reese didn't try to kill Fusco in the process.
• The Professionals
  • In "Private Madness Public Danger", Doyle enters a Bad Guy Bar and hauls a customer into the storeroom, but not before he throws the manager a coin and tells him to play something loud on the jukebox. Turns out the man is an undercover cop and the two of them start knocking things off the shelves to make it sound like Doyle is beating him up. When it's time to leave, he reminds Doyle to give him the requisite facial bruise.
  • In "Rogue", a corrupt CI5 agent knocks out a suspect, throws him out the window, then stabs himself in the shoulder with a knife moments before Bodie and Doyle kick down the door in response to his faked cries of alarm. Cowley's suspicions are raised when the autopsy reveals that the suspect was given a fatal karate chop when Cowley wanted him taken alive.
  • In "The Untouchables", Bodie and Doyle have to fake a punch-up. Doyle says he has a loose filling so Bodie agrees to hit the other side, ​only to get it wrong in the excitement.
• Spaced: When the gang rescue Tim & Daisy's dog from an animal testing lab, they feel bad that the sympathetic security guard will lose his job over it. Luckily, twist insisted on bringing her makeup bag.
  Tim: There. It's not your fault we got past you. We "beat you up".
  All laugh.
• In the Stargate SG-1 episode "1969", a young Lieutenant Hammond is worried that helping the team escape will get him court-martialed. Before they leave, O'Neill tells him he's about to make sure that doesn't happen... and zaps him with a Zat gun.
• In "Light and Shadows" from Star Trek: Discovery, the mirror Philippa Georgiou advises Michael Burnham to break her adoptive brother Spock out of Section 31 captivity. She tells Burnham right as the cameras come back on that she needs to "make it look good". Burnham does.
• In the episode "Folsom Prison Blues" (S02, Ep19) of Supernatural, Sam and Dean stage a fight to help them escape. In addition, Dean punches Deacon on the cheek to make it look like he was jumped.
• Downplayed in Titans (2018). Donna Troy (having given up being Wondergirl to be an Intrepid Reporter) is working with an Evil Poacher on an expose of the trade, but Dick Grayson barges in and starts throwing punches around. In an attempt to salvage the mess, Donna lies with eyes closed next to the unconscious poacher, and gets Dick to take photos of them using her own mobile, in the hope of convincing him she wasn't involved once he wakes up.
• In the original V (1983):
  • A Fifth Columnist gives Donovan her uniform to help him escape the ship, then makes him shoot her so it will look like a genuine escape. She actually tells Donovan to kill her, not stun her, as her superiors would never believe any story she'd come up with. He checks her pulse, and she luckily survived the blast.
  • Donovan is confronted at gunpoint by his Quisling mother. He points out that she'd never shoot her own son, so as he runs off she fires her gun in the air and rips her own dress.

Toys

• Subverted in BIONICLE. A group of Boxed Crooks trick a villager by offering him the claim to the capture of a wanted criminal in exchange for his boat. The leader of the group offers to do this to him.
  Brutaka: But if you want people to believe you caught this dangerous criminal, you will need to look like you've been in a fight. A light tap to your head would do the trick, perhaps. My colleague, Vezon, can handle it — you won't feel a thing.
  Vezon: Ever Again.
  • Brutaka then proceeds to knock him out cold and steal his boat without keeping his side of the bargain.

Video Games

• This is a possibility in Hidden Agenda (2017). Becky takes Finn(a man accused of being the Trapper) to an old house to look for clues leading to Adam(the guy Finn says is the Trapper). While they are alone, Finn proposes that Becky let him go so he can meet up with Adam and lure him to capture. Finn also says he'll "rough her up a bit" so that it doesn't look like she let him go on purpose.
• A borderline case: in Iji, if Vateilika helps you and kills Krotera, she asks Iji to pretend that she (Iji) did it herself. Similar with Ansaksie against Iosa.
• At the start of the second mission of Splinter Cell: Conviction, Grim does this to Sam, telling him to hit her to help sell the story that he overpowered her and escaped the mercenary camp. She baits him by telling him that his daughter Sarah is alive and she knows what really happened to her (after he spent several years and killed his own boss and friend while undercover because of Sarah's "death"), but he still doesn't actually hit her. When she tells him that she was instrumental in faking Sarah's death and kept it from Sam because of national security interests, Sam hits her, hard. She recovers and thanks him, and he hits her again.

Webcomics

• In Sidekick Girl, Tornado Boy punches unwilling henchman Coldfire during a mission. Though probably not really the reason he did so (Coldfire is dating Sidekick Girl in their civilian identities, and Tornado Boy has a crush on her), Coldfire says that it's good that he has the black eye resulting from it, as it would look suspicious if he just let the heroes walk on through without a fight.

Western Animation

• In the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Banana," Banana Joe, storms towards Gumball and Darwin to pick a fight, but ends up slipping and bruising himself. Gumball and Darwin know they'll be seen as bullies if anyone sees this, so they proceed to beat themselves up to make it look like it was an actual fight.
• In Hey Arnold! Helga inadvertently angers Big Patty, who vows to beat her up as a result. Terrified, Helga decides to handle the situation in a civil manner and issues an apology. Patty accepts and Helga happily declares that their scheduled confrontation is canceled. Patty apologizes says that she still needs to beat Helga up because she'd already vowed to do so and didn't want people to think she was a liar. The titular character has his own private talk with Patty and eventually, she decides to make it look like a fight occurred. She pushes Helga in a broom closet where the two make a bunch of loud noises, put mud on Helga's face and tear the sleeve of her shirt. Helga eventually emerges looking a mess and Arnold looks at Patty sadly. She simply smiles warmly and winks.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • "A Princess on Lothal": Twice, both to prevent the Imperials from realizing Princess Leia is a rebel.
    • When the Ghost arrives in the mountains to rescue them, Ryder Azadi, a wanted prisoner, gets himself and Leia aboard by pretending to abduct her. Kanan and Ezra, Dressing as the Enemy, get aboard by attempting to stop the "kidnapping" and get knocked out and "taken prisoner" by Zeb.
    • When they're almost done "stealing" Leia's ships, Ezra stuns her, with her permission.
  • "An Inside Man": Agent Kallus, who's revealed himself as Fulcrum, gets Force-thrown around by Ezra a few times to conceal the fact he was helping Ezra and Kanan escape from the Imperial complex.

Real Life

• According to Corrie Ten Boom, an inside man helping The Resistance against the Nazis in the Netherlands who got their hands on some ration cards told the Resistance member who'd come to get the cards to make the pickup look like a robbery. The inside man in question later turned up with several bumps on his head, explaining when asked only that the Resistance member had indeed made the raid look like a robbery.

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