Basic trope: A character pretends to be harmless or friendly to hide their actual self.
- Straight: Alice pretends to be a regular girl to get Bob to trust her. Bob later finds out she's got city-destroying superpowers.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is the nicest, sweetest little girl you could ever meet, and then it turns out she uses it to hide the fact she has a planet-consuming bomb planted inside her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
- Downplayed:
- Alice pretended to be harmless, but it turns out she's a delinquent who isn't a jerk, but still self-serving.
- Alice didn't make much of an effort to hide her true self, but it sure looked like she was harmless.
- Justified: Alice truly is a good person, but had she not hid her true self, Bob would've avoided her at all costs.
- Inverted:
- Alice pretends to be dangerous to intimidate Bob into giving her information. Turns out she's harmless and just wanted to know the information (snitching optional).
- Hidden Heart of Gold
- Subverted: It looks like Alice was pretending the entire time, but actually, she only pretended to pretend, so Bob would leave her and she could keep him safe.
- Double subverted: ...actually, to keep manipulating him and break his heart later on.
- Parodied: Alice shows up as a cute kitten made of cotton candy. At the big reveal, she announces that she's evil- and she's still a cute kitten made of cotton candy, but now she's an evil one.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice pretends to be harmless to hide her dangerous self, but said dangerous self was a pretention, but she was pretending, which was also a pretention... so on, so forth, to the point it's never made clear if she's harmless or not.
- Averted:
- Alice truly is harmless, and never shows any powerful prowess for the entire series.
- Alice truly is dangerous, remaining so for the entire series.
- Enforced: The producers want a plot twist, and they also want to break Bob's heart. They decide to enter a woman who he falls in love with, and then she turns out to be what Bob hates most.
- Implied: Bob is recapping events of the last year to his friend Aerith, then tells her, "I really thought I could trust Alice, but after what happened with her... I don't know who I can trust anymore."
- Lampshaded: "Alice played you, my dude. Just showed up, acted all nice, won your heart, and BAM! She turned out to be destructive."
- Invoked: A spy agency sends Alice to monitor Bob, with specific instructions to pretend to be friendly/sweet.
- Exploited: Freddy recognizes Alice and threatens to tell Bob she isn't who she says she is, unless she reveals her true self.
- Defied:
- Alice decides to be upfront about her self and tells Bob of how dangerous she is, but won't pretend to not be such.
- Bob trains herself to recognize when someone's pretending so he's prepared in any such case.
- Discussed: "Great, now Alice can join the ranks of fake-nice villains who played everyone."
- Conversed: "So Alice isn't that nice. I sort of saw that coming, what with all the wolves in sheep's clothing there are out there."
- Deconstructed: Bob saw right through Alice and boots her out of his life. Alice then loses the confidence to pretend she isn't dangerous.
- Reconstructed: Alice hypnotizes Bob into thinking she's isn't who she actually is.
- Played for laughs: Alice's so-called dangerous, city-scale powers are... causing cockroaches to invade homes.
- Played for drama: Alice reveals herself to not be who she pretended at the brink of Bob's death, in an attempt to save him.
- Played for horror: Alice is a reformed criminal who acts sweet and nice all the way... until she slips into what she used to be and starts committing misdeeds once again.
Don't worry, the main page HERE won't pretend to not ruin your life.
