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False Friend - TV Tropes
"Suspicion that a character once thought trustworthy may not be trustworthy!"
This describes a person, be it a Manipulative Bastard, Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Sociopath, Alpha Bitch, or whatever, who gets close to you and pretends to be your ally, friend, lover, etc. Basically, they earn your trust, and when you least expect it, they betray you and reveal they've merely been playing you this whole time. Another variation on this is that the manipulative character may find himself Becoming the Mask, developing real feelings for the person he betrayed. Sometimes, the betrayer may turn out to be someone you've known pretty much your whole life.
If a character with a Friendless Background finally finds a person who appears to believe in him or her, and then that person turns out to be a False Friend, it's almost certain that the character will then have crossed the Despair Event Horizon, or at least is very vulnerable to such, especially if that character defended them against rightful accusations, leading to Post-Support Regret. Speaking of event horizons, forming a "friendship" with someone only to take advantage of them is a common way to cross the Moral Event Horizon. A False Friend is also likely to be intended to be hated by the audience.
The Mole is perhaps the best-known practitioner of this brand of betrayal.
Closely related to Evil All Along, Was It All a Lie?, and I Just Want to Have Friends. Can lead to an Et Tu, Brute? situation. If the False Friend turns out to be the guy behind everything, he's a Big Bad Friend. Contrast True Companions. The polar opposite of both Vitriolic Best Buds and With Friends Like These... if true friends are always mean to each other but still remain friends. If it's about a character revealing their hatred for another during a falling out, then it's Hidden Disdain Reveal. See also The Farmer and the Viper and Fair-Weather Foe. If the False Friend is a minion of a villain, expect them to be The Starscream.
Sadly... Truth in Television.
Not to be confused with the term in linguistics for words in two languages which look similar but do not mean the same thing. ("Embarazada? But… I trusted you!")
Related to Broken Pedestal.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Attack on Titan uses this as one of the major twists of the series, giving the cast and audience a solid Gut Punch in the process. It's made even more painful by the revelation that even though Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie were spies and responsible for much death and suffering, the bonds of friendship were genuine. Eren reacts about as well as can be expected.
- Griffith of Berserk was never a nice guy, even before his Face–Heel Turn. A good example of this is how he treats Princess Charlotte, who's genuinely in love with him, as a Meal Ticket while still pretending to be in love with her. The only person he was remotely honest with was Guts. He has a catastrophic breakdown when Guts tries to leave the Hawks due to wanting to stand on even ground with him and feeling that he was unable to as his subordinate. Griffith fights him again, but the breakdown comes from Guts beating him as effortlessly as Griffith beat Guts in their first meeting. From there, he sleeps with Charlotte, gets caught, imprisoned and tortured, and the realization he'll never be the man he was (what with most of his tendons missing, he can't even stand or hold a sword) is part of what drives him to call on the Godhand during the Eclipse and willingly sacrifice the Hawks.
- Betrayal Knows My Name:
- Uzuki to Yuki. As he himself tells Yuki in episode 2 "You're a nuisance. I hate your goody-two-shoes, know-it-all act. I'm not your friend. I felt bad for you, so I thought I'd try being nice, but you misunderstood. No one needs you." But its refreshingly subverted when its revealed Uzuki was just deeply hurting from being abandoned by his parents and lashed out at others. He and Yuki become friends again after Yuki gets rid of the demon that was possessing Uzuki and feeding on his negative emotions.
- And in episode 12 Kanata, Yuki's best friend, does this when he reveals to Yuki that he is actually the Big Bad Reiga.
- Bleach: Aizen does this when stabbing Hinamori while hugging and praising her, as well as betraying everyone in Soul Society (who adored him) after revealing the fact that he has always been against them.
- The first time you properly see Izaya Orihara in the Durarara!! anime, he spends most of the episode having a suicidal and unstable girl named Rio, that he pretended to sympathize with and be friends with online, kidnapped and then orchestrating her rescue, only to hold poor Rio over the side of a building, toy with her desire (or lack thereof) to actually commit suicide, and then wander off to watch from a distance as Rio's despair reaches its peak and she decides to jump anyway. Luckily for her, Celty was a little more worried about her safety and saves her.
- Sakurako Sanjou of Boys Over Flowers, who in all continuities (manga, anime, drama) befriends Tsukushi Makino and looks like a kind, shy, cutesy type... at least up until she has Tsukushi drugged, takes pictures of her unconscious in compromising positions and distributes them freely among the school, leading to her assault by other students. This is revealed to be her master plan for seducing/revenging herself upon Domyoji, Tsukushi's Slap-Slap-Kiss-y love interest, which also involved her spending a fortune on plastic surgery, dropping out of school in the past, and hiring professional goons to assault various characters (not only Tsukushi). The reason for all of this is that ever since she was in kindergarten, Domyoji bullied her and called her ugly. She does eventually get some much-needed Character Development, however, and becomes more of a Good Is Not Nice Jerk with a Heart of Gold case.
- In Brave10, Anastasia upon her Face–Heel Turn reveals the friendliness was all an act to get information.
- Code Geass:
- Rolo, Lelouch's fake little brother, was actually a teenage assassin charged with the task of keeping an eye on Lelouch in case he regained his old memories. When Lelouch found out, he continued treating Rolo kindly and orchestrated a situation where Lelouch could pretend to risk his life to save Rolo, winning his trust and bringing him over to his side. After Lelouch's real sister died or so we think, he admitted to Rolo that he was just using him, actually hated him, and had tried to kill him on several occasions. Nevertheless, without being asked or influenced by Lelouch's Geass, Rolo sacrificed himself to protect Lelouch, since he believed that even when Lelouch lied to him, his own love for Lelouch was sincere.
- And Empress Marianne, Lelouch's mother, whom he looked up to and adored is revealed to actually be quite the Magnificent Bitch.
- When Riff from Count Cain has his confusing Face–Heel Turn and "dies," it is revealed that Riff, the manservant personality was never actually real. This is Cain's manservant, by the way, the only one who can "see his scars, make his tea, and tie his shoelaces." Epic Tear Jerker.
- Death Note:
- Delicious in Dungeon: One episode has the adventurers traversing a water-filled domain. Senshi introduces his newfound friends to his beloved "Annie", a kelpie he befriended long ago. Laios warns him, that a person doesn't know what a monster is thinking. Senshi scoffs at that and tells Laios that he's known Annie far longer than him and then he gets on Annie's back. This traps Senshi and Annie does the Kelpie behavior going deep under water to try and drown him. After Laios rescues him, Senshi understands that Annie only wanted to be "friends" to lull him into riding on her back so she can drown him.
- Elfen Lied: During Lucy's childhood, she made friends with another girl who promised to keep the fact that Lucy was taking care of a puppy a secret from a group of boys who frequently bullied her. Eventually, the boys found out about the puppy and beat it to death in front of Lucy while making her watch. It turns out the girl Lucy made friends with had deliberately told the boys about the puppy, and while she's pretending to cry about it and feel bad about what she did, we see her smile through her crocodile-tears. Lucy then snaps forever and kills her along with the bullies. It is however left somewhat ambiguous if that was the case. It's possible Lucy imagined the smile and the girl really didn't know the boys were gonna do that to the puppy.
- Franken Fran: One chapter has Veronica go to a school, where everybody picks on her except for one girl, who invites her to her home. She actually works for a pedophile ring, attracting young girls to be sold overseas. After Veronica slaughters the men, she spares the girl's life... leaving her to work out how to explain the corpses in her apartment.
- Gankutsuou:
- In the beginning, The Count seems to like Albert when in reality he only views him as a tool for his revenge. However, as time goes on, he finds himself developing real feelings for Albert which cause him lots of angst and heartbreak, but ultimately save him in the end.
- Also, Peppo to Albert. Though she/he (?) eventually develops actual feelings for him.
- Hamatora: In the new season, Art, who used to be Nice's friend, but turned against him and his friends.
- Highschool of the Dead: The first chapter/episode has two girls, Toshimi and Misuzu, proclaiming their friendship while running hand-in-hand as they attempt to escape the zombies overrunning their school. That is until Toshimi gets caught unexpectedly and is promptly abandoned to die by her "friend" Misuzu, who kicks the other girl to force her to let go of her hand so she could save herself. But Misuzu is immediately caught and killed, as well.
- Hot Gimmick: Azusa does this to Hatsumi, making her fall in love with him before trying to have his friends gang rape her out of revenge.
- Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?
- Shinji Suzuki is this to everyone in his life. He is worshiped by his classmates, despite being a satanic bully who loves to torture his victims with his classmates, ignoring his crimes, and he grows up to be a successful banker who ruthlessly rejects clients who are more sympathetic bankers would help; his boss and workmates all admire him for his work, even if some of them are a little uncomfortable with his methods. But he reveals that he considers all his classmates and workmates pawns and idiots that he can manipulate to gain success and boost his ego, and he has no genuine care or connection for them.
- This becomes deconstructed because making fake friendships based on superficial charm backfires on Shinji. By the end of the story, all of Shinji's crimes are revealed to his workmates at the bank, and they learn he cheats on his wife and tortures his classmate; unlike his schoolmates, his boss and workmates will not ignore his crimes and are disgusted with him. Shinji's boss refused his promotion and demoted him; his workmates refused to interact with him and be threatened by him. It’s implied that they always resented Shinji for his arrogance, and now they know the full extent of what a monster he is; he has lost their respect for him and let their resentment go to the surface.
- Later, when Shinji went to two high school friends for help, they pretended to help him while sabotaging him because they were jealous of his success and angry at his arrogance. Ultimately, Shinji being a fake friend and building relationships to boost his ego backfired when the people he manipulated learned of the monster he is, they was turned on him, and even the people who knew he was a monster turned on him because they were jealous of his success, and ultimately, he was left alone.
- The only people who generally loved Shinji were his wife and daughter, and they turned against him because his actions hurt them, and they could not deal with the fact that he was a remorseless monster that destroyed lives.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Golden Wind: The unnamed boy who pretended to be a big brother-type figure to Narancia then ruined his life when he framed him for assault.
- Stone Ocean: Romeo essentially did nothing when Jolyne was framed for a hit and run just to avoid prison. The next time he appears, he makes up for this by assisting Jolyne and even throws the police off her trail.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Hayasaka's friendship with Mirin and Subaru (in the main series) and Karen and Erika (in the spin-off) are almost entirely in service to her role as Kaguya's valet, the former two because their chattiness lets her keep track of gossip at school and the latter two because she mistook Karen for a potential stalker and didn't realize she was a harmless idiot until it was too late to cut ties. Her befriending Shirogane at the end of the karaoke arc is driven mainly by the desire to have an actual friend that isn't in some way tied to her job.
- Sara to Yuuri in Kyo Kara Maoh!. However, Sara does save Yuuri after betraying him and they become friends again, subverting the trope.
- Manami from Life (2002) is introduced as a classmate who befriends the introverted and depressed Ayumu. It soon becomes obvious she is simply trying to manipulate and bully Ayumu. She's the closest thing to a Big Bad the manga has.
- Lupin III: Island of Assassins: Doc literally made a career out of ingratiating himself with various partners, only to stab them in the back once it was convenient for him.
- Years prior to the start of the film, he was Lupin's old partner before meeting Jigen. That ended the day he shot Lupin during one of their escapes, with his own Walther P-38, then left him for dead.
- He also spent years pretending to care about Ellen, despite being responsible for her brother's death (unbeknownst to her). Once he no longer needed her, he conspired with Gordeau to have her and the other defectors mass murdered.
- Gordeau wasn't exempt either, since Doc knew he was planning to turn on him once everything was in place. So he beat him to the punch by giving him a fake antidote, then shot Gordeau while he was suffering from the toxin.
- Near the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection, it's revealed that Kyrie's Childhood Friend Iris has actually been pretending to be her friend since the day they met and was only using her as a pawn to get her revenge on Yuri. Detonation shows that Kyrie never actually stop viewing her as a friend (especially in light of learning the reasons behind her actions), and she (and Yuri) happily welcome her back after her incarceration had ended.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char Aznable spends years pretending to be Garma Zabi's friend, but sets him up for defeat and a brutal death at the hands of the White Base, and gleefully admits to the betrayal during Garma's final moments. It was all part of his plan to destroy the Zabi family one by one.
- This trope was conversed in Chapter 8 of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, animated as the first half of Episode 4. Nozaki was initially unwilling to consult Tomoda when playing Mikoshiba's Dating Sim as he sees anyone who appears to be friendly to the protagonist in fiction to be this—after all, Nozaki is a Shoujo Genre author by trade. After a brief explanation of the trope itself by Nozaki, Mikoshiba complained Nozaki for being Wrong Genre Savvy.
- MOON – Subaru Solitude Standing has Minmin's friend from acrobat school. He was friendly towards her when she was homesick and showed her how much fun being an acrobat can be, as well as how it helps send money to her poor family. The two even start a romance going on, but Minmin realizes that his friendship was a setup by the school's higher-ups. He was supposed to manipulate her into not leaving, no matter how.
- Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation has Hitogami who offers advice to his apostles. Following it will usually improve their lives, while ignoring it makes their lives worse. This subtly trains them to follow his suggestions without question, unknowingly setting off cascades of events that benefit Hitogami. He will continue to use them in this way either until they're killed by his enemy or betraying them furthers the plan.
- Naruto:
- Kabuto usually presents himself as this harmless, bumbling oaf with Nerd Glasses, but is, in fact, the subordinate of the Big Bad Orochimaru, and Naruto seems clearly angry and upset when he realizes this because he had originally believed Kabuto was on their side since he helped them by giving them information and the like.
- Shiranami to Hotaru in the Six-Tailed Beast arc.
- Also, Yashamaru, Gaara's uncle. At first, Gaara thought that he was the only one that cared about him. Yashamaru taught Gaara about physical pain, emotional pain, and love; concepts Gaara was completely unaware of in his childhood. He was commanded by the Fourth Kazekage to assassinate Gaara but was given the choice in deciding whether he wanted to proceed or not. Yashamaru willingly accepted the command in order to avenge his older sister's premature death. The assassination attempt, however, ended in a desperate suicide mission and ultimately failed. Before he died, he told Gaara that no one had ever really loved him, not even him. This left Gaara even more of an emotional wreck than he already was. His suicide bombing attempt on Gaara's life caused Gaara to become psychotic. Yashamaru's last words, to Gaara, were "This is it. Please die." It's revealed much later that he truly did it under the orders of the Fourth Kazekage (Gaara's dad) as part of a Secret Test of Character, and that he had objected to such a move but ultimately had no choice.
- In the second Shippuden movie Shinnou turns out to be one for Amaru. Amaru is quite shocked but separates the person who taught her medicine and served as an inspiration to save lives and the person who is the Big Bad.
- Tobi and Nagato worked as allies as the true powers of Akatsuki. But after Nagato's death, Tobi shows frank contempt for Nagato, saying that Nagato just too easily influenced and merely complains about needing another pawn. And later, he reveals to Konan that he had been using Nagato's ideals and his quite understandable hatred against the people to control him.
- Natsu e no Tobira has one of Marion's three friends playing the trope to him: none other than Lind, who was so Driven by Envy regarding him that, when Marion became the lover of a married woman, he decided to sell him out to the lady's very high-ranked husband, hoping that the cuckolded man would complain to the school and get Marion expelled. It fails big time: not only the old man is more or less indifferent, but when his and Marion's friend Jacques finds out, he explodes on Lind himself.
- One Piece:
- Kuro does this to Kaya as part a lengthy scheme to gain her trust so he can claim her fortune and retire from piracy. When Kaya finds out his true nature, he freely admits that he hated having to act the kindly butler to her.
- It is again used by the CP9 as they act friendly, become well-loved members of Water 7, befriend many members of Dock 1, including Paulie, but when they reveal themselves, they also reveal that they never had any attachment to the city or to the people inside it. Paulie can't believe it at first, and asks his traitorous good friend Rob Lucci:
- It was used during Alabasta by the crime boss and Shichibukai, Crocodile, with him pretending to be aiding the dying sand kingdom by killing any invading bands of pirates and purporting himself as fighting for the people, when in reality he was just goading them so he could use his organization known as Baroque Works to destroy them from the inside and have their king show him the Fantastic Nuke that their country is hiding.
- In PandoraHearts, Jack Vessalius turns out to be this to Arthur Barma in the past and Oz in the present. It can be argued that he was also this to Oswald/Glen, though it's very possible the two were genuine friends before Lacie's death drove Jack insane.
- Peach Girl:
- Sae to Momo for the first couple of volumes before the two genuinely become friends.
- And Sae gets a taste of her own medicine when she falls for Ryo, who's just as manipulative as her. The betrayal part comes into play when he sets Sae up to do a porn video without her knowledge. Thankfully, Momo saves her.
- An early chapter of the horror manga Presents focused on two girls, Rinko and Suzuko. Everyone said the two were great friends, but what they (and Suzuko) didn't know was that Rinko only befriended Suzuko because she thought Suzuko made her look better by comparison. As time went on though, Suzuko slowly started becoming more confident without losing her friendly demeanor, and Rinko became desperate to knock Suzuko down a few pegs. Although in all honesty, it's more that Rinko's inferiority complex coupled with the fact that she was now suffering from an outbreak of zits was making her more paranoid about Suzuko (not helped by Suzuko's naturally flawless skin). She gives Suzuko tainted perfume, which causes Suzuko to develop horrible boils on her face. Karmic Trickster Kurumi appears to help Suzuko, realizing Suzuko really is as innocent as she appears, and helps her deliver a "return gift" to Rinko. Kurumi reveals to Suzuko just how much of a giant bitch Rinko is, and the return gift is Suzuko's despair and feeling of betrayal transferred to Rinko. This restores Suzuko's face to normal and gives Rinko boils alongside her acne.
- Lancia of Reborn! (2004) is a young Mafia boss who took Mukuro Rokudo in as a child. However, he was betrayed and brainwashed by Mukuro's Hypnotic Eyes, which forced him to kill his entire family.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena:
- Akio is The Casanova to the extreme and does this to a lot of people, most notably to Utena. Another example is when Nanami walks in on her beloved brother Touga making out with a member of her old gang, Keiko, and overhears him say he never loved her to begin with, and her ex-friend claims she has no connection to her anymore either.
- Touga is actually very good at this, and his other victim aside of Nanami is Saionji. Yes, Saionji was a Jerkass, but not even he deserved Touga's horrible treatment.
- In Sakura Gari Sakurako passes herself off as a kind-hearted Satellite Love Interest to Masataka (who genuinely starts falling for her). Unfortunately for him, she's a scary and thoroughly broken Yandere who actually hates him and is incredibly possessive of her brother.
- Otome's "friends" Natsumi, Minami and Kumi do this to her in School Days. Otome is betrayed by them twice: they first videotape her having sex with Makoto, the guy she likes, and show the tape to the whole school, note This only happens in the anime, in the games it's Nanami's rival Chie who does it and then they have sex with him behind her back.note (In the anime it's set on stone, but it's optional -in the games) And they do this for no reason at all.
- Haruko turns out to have been playing her friend from the start in School Mermaid as part of a horrific Batman Gambit.
- Kyouko Mogami of Skip Beat! initially followed her childhood friend Shou to Tokyo to help him to get into a music career. Although Shou didn't help her at all and mistreated her, Kyouko still believed that all her efforts (doing several part-time jobs, paying for his training, being his de-facto unpaid maid) would be eventually repaid with love and gratitude. (Plus, Shou's parents were considering to make her the heiress of the family business instead of Sho.) Until she learns, from the mouth of Shou himself, that he has no feelings towards her, and the only reason he asked her to come with him was that he knew she would act as his personal maid for nothing. So she snaps, decides not to take it anymore, and makes the resolve to get revenge on him by trying to become as famous as him.
- Snow White with the Red Hair: At thirteen years-old, prince Zen finally made his first friend after his position had left him isolated from anyone who didn't want to use him for his title. Unfortunately, this friend only befriended him as part of an assassination attempt, and Zen couldn't try to kill him even after the plot was revealed and his "friend" was making a legitimate attempt on his life. He was saved by his older brother and the knight Mitsuhide, who became his true first friend even if Zen was unable to ever stop considering the traitor as such.
- In the backstory of Special A, Akira's childhood friend Sayo only hung out with Akira because she was rich. Yahiro, a real friend to Akira, drove Sayo away to protect Akira but let Akira believe he did it because he was just being a jerk to spare her the truth. In the present she still hates him.
- In the yaoi manga Under Grand Hotel an inmate named Norman is in love with Swordfish, who is in love with Sen, but pretended to be in love/friends with Sen so he could get closer to Swordfish. He tried to persuade Swordfish to kill Sen but that didn't work. So, on one occasion when there was a scuffle going on he tried to get Sen out of the way by stabbing him with a pencil but accidentally ends up stabbing his inmate Walter instead who was trying to protect Sen in the hope of getting protection from Swordfish. When he finds this out, Norman holds a knife to Walter's neck telling him, "If you don't want to die, don't butt in again Walter!"
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, it is later revealed that the seemingly friendly and innocent transfer student Rei Shingetsu is in fact Vector, one of the Seven Barian Emperors, who had set up a long, elaborate con that started from befriending Yuma and his friends, and ending once he reveals his true colors in the cruelest way possible, solely to mess with Yuma.
- Zatch Bell!: Tia considered Maruss to be one of her closest friends while the two were still in the Mamodo world. Flashbacks showed that the two of them appeared to genuinely care about each other. However, when Tia meets up with Maruss again in the human world, he makes it clear that this is a battle for being king and that their friendship means nothing to him anymore; he doesn’t hesitate to attack her and try to burn her book. While it’s unknown why Maruss changed and what he felt about his friendship with Tia before since there’s no evidence that he was brainwashed, it’s likely that his friendship with Tia never met as much to him as it did to her. Maruss, in fact, goes all out in hurting Tia to make it clear that he loves to hurt her and considers her a weakling he could beat doing what he can to hurt her, showing that if he had ever loved her as a friend, those feelings are gone or never were there and he shows no hesitant or remorse and hurting Tia. After showing his true colors, though, with a nearly successful attack that leaves Tia wounded and with severe trust issues, shocked and deeply hurt by his betrayal, she takes a while to fully recover from the physical and emotional pain he inflicted on her.
Comic Books
- Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Played With. Samantha Strong appears to be one of the nicest people in her hometown of Woodbrook. She’s a good neighbor, a kind boss, and an all-around good friend, and she has been looked up to as a pillar of her community in Woodbrook. But she’s also secretly a serial killer and sociopath, with all of her relationships being fake and superficially so she can have the life she wants in her hometown. It isn’t that Samantha has contempt for the people of Woodbrook, or she doesn’t get any joy from being nice to them, she’s ultimately just wired to not care about them. This was shown with Samantha’s friend Lola, who she had known for 40 years and acknowledged as her closest friend. But when Samantha discovered that Lola's son Nigel was a serial killer disrupting the town, threatening to expose her own killings, Samantha didn’t hesitate to kill Lola, despite it being revealed that Lola knew all along that Samantha and Nigel were serial killers and kept their secret. As Samantha tells Nigel before she kills him, she knew Lola for 40 years and liked her well enough, but ultimately, she was just someone she knew. That shows that while Samantha ultimately does like and have some affection for the people in her life, she has no real deeper connection and would not hesitate to kill them when it benefits her.
- In the final part of Justice League: Trinity War, the Atom (Rhonda Pineda) who was first thought to be a sleeper agent for the JLA working on the Justice League, but was revealed to have put a small piece of Kryptonite in Superman's brain, poisoning him. She revealed that she was a sleeper agent from Earth 3. before this, she was actually quite friendly to everyone.
- Largo Winch: Largo finds himself in a Turkish cell framed for murder with a Swiss safecracker named Simon. When word gets out that he's the heir to an enormous fortune and company, the terrified higher-ups let him out, but the State Sec guy secretly has them shadowed to be murdered. This backfires on him, and with Simon and Largo now Fire-Forged Friends, they start looking for the person who had Largo framed in the first place. This leads to one of his company's CEOs, who... orders Simon to pull a gun on Largo, before revealing that he'd set up the entire thing, counting on the two becoming friends, to get Largo exactly where he wanted. What the CEO hadn't counted on was that his hold on Simon was guaranteed by holding Simon's adoptive mother hostage, which made Simon confess as soon as they were out of Turkey. Then Largo found out that the CEO's goons had tortured her to death... The CEO's death at Simon's hands was neither pretty, soundless nor quick.
- In The Smurfs comic book story "The Jewel Smurfer", Ganelon is revealed to be this to the Duke of Abelagot, having kidnapped the duke's son and held him hostage to extort a ransom from the duke. The Smurfs know about this and put on a Show Within a Show to expose Ganelon as a traitor.
Fan Works
Crossovers
- All Worlds Alliance: Chandler Cheesecake befriends Funabori with the intent of unleashing the Zero Goddess inside of her.
- Amelie in Amity: Paulina unwittingly becomes one to Amelie. Jealous of the attention the new girl is getting, she pretends to be nice to her in order to lure her into humiliating pranks. However, all of these plans failed, with Amelie none the wiser and sincerely believing that Paulina was a good friend.
- A Hollow in Equestria: Ulquiorra attempts to invoke this from Chapter 35 onwards, hoping to convince the ponies to leave him alone so he can focus on figuring out who's threatening Equestria. This ultimately backfires, in part since he doesn't understand how said friendships developed in the first place, so he unintentionally winds up strengthening them in the long run.
- Throughout the Infinity Train: Blossomverse, Goh is constantly accused of having been a horrible excuse of a friend to Chloe, as he never spends time with her and is blissfully unaware of the bullying she's been dealing with at school. As the series progresses, however, it's made clear that he really does care about her; he's just not very good at showing this due to lacking social skills and not communicating very well.
- The Legend of Ruby: Cinder, Mercury and Emerald spend the first half of the story posing as ordinary students of Beacon Academy, rubbing elbows with the very people they're spying upon.
- The Matrix Rewinds: In a rare heroic version, Victoria's Beta Bitch friend Courtney (who took the name Elle after unplugging) has only taken on the role as part of her cover.
- The World of the Creatures: Hope presents herself to Patrick as a compassionate, supportive friend who's always willing to be there for him and listen to his troubles. In reality, she's only doing this to make him more dependent upon her, so she can cut him off from his real friends.
Amphibia
- In A Moth to a Flame, Marcy's journal reveals that she never considered the Planters or any of the other residents of Wartwood to be her friends, and only put up with them for Anne's sake.
Arrowverse
Avatar: The Last Airbender
A Certain Magical Index
- A Certain Infinite Possibility: While ambiguous at first, it eventually becomes clear that Jason doesn't actually care for anyone in the Kamijou Faction. They're simply useful to them, and they keep them alive because they need them for their plans.
Chick Tracts
- In Whatever Happened to Elfstar?, Gina Frost allows Marcie into their circle of friends and their D&D sessions, only to single her out because she doesn't want Marcie getting too close to Debbie. When Marcie breaks down because of the ostracization, Gina kicks her out of the group and shows no sympathy when told she's suffering.
Danny Phantom
- Danny Phantom: Stranded has Colette Bevier:
- With Paulina Sanchez. While they have a lot in common and put on a united front with the A-listers, it's clear they largely "befriended" each other for their social standing and to spite Star, as they only seem to get along when they're bullying her. In fact, Colette and Paulina secretly despise each other, always trying to one-up the other and being quick to turn on their new "best friend" when things go wrong.
- She's this to the A-Listers in general, even considering their standard "friendships", since Colette only regards them as potential minions rather than just a clique to improve her standing in the school's hierarchy and barely bothers to care about typical A-Lister "business" unless it concerns her plans. It's telling that once the A-Listers refuse to let her continue dragging them into her ill-fated schemes to steal Danny from Star, she begins to stop actively associating with them altogether, not seeming to know or care that they plan to kick her out of the group.
Disney Animated Canon
- Daughter of a Harsh Winter: Kevin and Marcy Hanson only befriended Anna because of her father's status; when he lost the election, her Childhood Friends promptly tossed her aside and started bullying her. What's worse, Kevin started regarding her as his personal plaything.
- To Extinguish The Sun: After secretly observing Camilo for a decade, Mateo earns his trust over a period of several months before luring him into a secluded area and assaulting him.
The Fairly OddParents!
- In A Lonely Girl, Trixie Tang questions whether Veronica and the rest of the "Popular Kids" are actually her friends, or if they're only pretending to be for the sake of social status.
Gravity Falls
Harry Potter
- Throughout The Very Secret Diary, Tom pretends to be Ginny's friend, manipulating her into confiding in him while aiming to use her to resurrect himself.
Hellaverse
- Owl's Hell That Ends Well: The final chapter reveals that Marquis Phenex, a long-time friend of Stolas, was the one who'd hired Striker to murder Stalos during the Harvest Moon Festival.
The Hunger Games
- An Unsung Song features plenty of betrayals in this fashion. Charity betrays both of their allies; Chenille and Fabian also betray Ionia and Samantha, only for those two to return the favor.
The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors
- The Ghosts of the Old Castle:
- Abazh manipuluates Anidag into trusting him, then fatally poisons her, declaring that she deserves such a fate as he's convinced she would have repaid any efforts to help her gain the throne by executing him immediately after ascending.
- Aunt Aksal also manipulates Olya and Yalo, pretending to be their friend while using them to their own ends. They never learn the truth.
Love Hina
- For His Own Sake: Kagura and Chisato convince Mutsumi that they want to help her in her self-imposed mission to get Keitaro and Naru back together. As it turns out, Mutsumi is so delusional that she continues to believe this even when they act in ways that clearly contradict their claims, such as when Kagura attempts to seduce Keitaro. Ultimately, Chisato becomes so enraged by her stupidity that she slaps and calls her out:
Chisato: Will you just shut the hell up? Even Naru said that she didn't want to work things out with Keitaro, who what makes you think that after all that was said, all that you heard that things were going to go as you wanted?
Kagura: It was so easy to have you wrapped around our fingers, but even so, we didn't think that you were so... well, so stupid. I mean there has to be a limit of how stupid someone can be, right?
Miraculous Ladybug
- Archenemies to Superfriends has Lila realize that most of her classmates are Secretly Selfish and were taking advantage of Marinette before she came along and they all switched targets to her, wanting to exploit her supposed celebrity ties. This ironically leads to her bonding with Marinette over time due to their shared frustration over their classmates being All Take and No Give.
- BURN THE WITCH: Lila served as one to most of her classmates, but especially Rose, who is utterly heartbroken when she learns too late that Lila tricked her into donating to a Fake Charity. Especially since Rose unwittingly encouraged many of her friends and family to donate as well, even contacting Prince Ali out of the belief that he'd naturally want to support his dear friend... only for Prince Ali to reveal he didn't know who Lila was, berating Rose for getting him involved with a Con Artist and cutting off contact with her.
- Burning Bridges, Building Confidence: Lila naturally serves as one to all of her "friends", as well as a Toxic Friend Influence. Alya is the hardest hit; Lila manipulates her into becoming her brutish enforcer. At one point, Lila pretends to be listening to Alya vent, but secretly mutes her, only switching it back on so she can pass on some 'juicy' cherry-picked gossip.
- In Crimson and Noire, Marinette isn't aware that Lila is a Consummate Liar who acts sweet and friendly while attempting to monopolize as much of Marinette's free time as possible. Plagg suspects that Lila is a Clingy Jealous Girl who wants Marinette all to herself.
- In Hold on til May, it turns out that Adrien is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Not only did he trick Chloé into constantly taking the fall for all of their mischief as children, he sees all of their classmates as Unwitting Pawns whom he's manipulating to create the "ideal high school experience" he's always wanted. After Marinette transfers to another school, he becomes hellbent on forcing her to come back — not because he cares about her, but because he thinks she's a particularly useful pawn.
- Honesty Akuma Attack: In Someone-EV's interpretation, Marinette realizes while under the titular akuma's influence that none of her classmates were worth the effort she'd made to help them. Even before Lila came along, they were All Take and No Give, Easily Condemning her after falling for Lila's Celebrity Lies. To drive this home, they exploit the fact that Marinette doesn't recall what happened while she was under the akumatized Rose's control to manipulate her into forgiving them, underscoring just how selfish they are by keeping her Locked Out of the Loop.
- I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors: Both Lila and Adrien qualify here, as both only care about manipulating the rest of their classmates to their own selfish ends. Notably, Lila ends up exposing Adrien when she praises him as her Accomplice by Inaction.
- The Karma of Lies:
- Lila, quite naturally, is a Manipulative Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who strings her classmates along with promises that are Too Good to Be True. Notably, she sees the rest of the class as being much like her — in her eyes, it's clear that they only care about what they can get out of being her friends, and she's simply exploiting their Secretly Selfish nature.
- Adrien also proves himself to be one, preferring to let Lila do as she pleases because he might be inconvenienced if he warns his classmates that they're being conned. His friendship is shown to be purely lip service; he likes calling Marinette, Nino, and the others his friends without having to actually do anything to help them out.
- Lila serves as one to Alya in Marinette Dupain-Cheng's Spite Playlist. As Alya is reeling from the shock and hurt of Marinette transferring to another school and calling her out for being a Fair-Weather Friend, Lila convinces her that she's a much truer friend, when in reality, she's been taking advantage of her every step of the way.
- Marinette's Week Off: Alya and the majority of Marinette's classmates turn their collective back upon her after falling for Lila's Celebrity Lies, convinced the other girl can do more favors for them. Come the sequel, they try Crossing the Burnt Bridge once her acting career unexpectedly takes off; Alya doesn't even attempt to hide that she's eager to extract "favors" in the name of Marinette earning her "forgiveness".
- Miraculous Ladybug Salt-Shots:
- The One to Make It Stay: Lila serves as one to everyone who trusts her, but especially Alya, whom she outright sabotages for her own private amusement. Notably, Lila sees Alya as no better than her after learning about her plans to use Lila as an Unwitting Pawn in an Operation: Jealousy scheme.
- Tattered Remains of Broken Dreams (Yours, not Mine): Aside from Nathaniel and Chloé, all of Marinette's classmates are Entitled Bastards who fully expect her to keep making free things for them even after they ripped apart her sketchbook... that had all their projects in it. Poor Rose is the only one who has a Jerkass Realization and sincerely apologizes for their actions by the end; Alya, Adrien and all the rest act as though Marinette is in the wrong for not giving them everything they wanted.
- Telling Lies? No, Mama: Chloé undermines Lila's Celebrity Lies by pointing out to their classmates that if Lila did start asking all her famous friends to do a bunch of favors for kids they don't even know, she'd just be revealing herself as somebody trying to ride their coattails to fame and fortune.
- Villain Of Your Own Story: Alya has a bad tendency to fall for these due to being a Horrible Judge of Character.
- Wolves don't Party with Sheep:
- The story's events are triggered by an unnamed socialite discovering that the people she'd thought were her friends were actually spreading Malicious Slander about her behind her back, ruining her reputation. She consequently gets akumatized into Two-faced, whose powers expose what anyone who speaks really thinks about whomever they're currently addressing.
- On top of accidentally revealing herself as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, Lila's inner voice also reveals that she sees her classmates as a bunch of Gullible Lemmings, so moronic that she didn't even have to TRY putting together any particularly believable lies.
- Adrien acted as The Mole for Marinette and her few remaining friends, pretending that he liked Nino and the rest of the class while secretly relaying all of their plans and casually exchanged insults. When he reveals the truth, his inner voice berates the lot for never noticing how he didn't actually attend any of their "secret" parties and outings, or that he'd stopped returning Nino's texts.
- The Wolves in the Woods calls Alya's friendship with Marinette into question, as she convinced most of the class to turn upon her based on Lila's claims... while fully aware that Lila wasn't telling the truth. Why? Because she wanted to "knock her down a few pegs" after her recent successes and keep Marinette cowed and dependent upon her "bestie".
- Nino also wonders whether Alya originally defended her from Chloé because it was the right thing to do... or simply because she wanted to "play the hero". It's heavily implied that she wanted Marinette to remain an Extreme Doormat, disliking the idea of her gaining any confidence.
- Lila realizes too late that her classmates brazenly exploited Marinette's kindness in an All Take and No Give relationship, and that the main reason they turned so readily upon her is because they saw it as the fastest way to earn Lila's approval... and they're all eager for her to start using her supposed celebrity connections to rocket them to fame and fortune. And they can turn upon her just as quickly and brutally as they did Marinette...
My Hero Academia
- The Best Case Scenario, if you're being "realistic": Sir Nighteye is a Control Freak who brazenly exploits All Might's guilt and grief over two students being killed at the USJ to convince him to pass his Quirk on to Mirio, the successor Nighteye chose for him. He then proceeds to milk All Might's reputation for all it's worth as he attempts to ensure HE gets to dictate the future of Japan, striving to undermine others' efforts to stablize the country by smearing the police and claiming they're incompetent, destroying All Might's connections with the force in the process. When All Might falls into such despair that he attempts suicide, Sir Nighteye shows No Sympathy and coldly berates him for how this "moment of weakness" has undermined his image, driving home that he's only using the Symbol of Peace for his own selfish ends.
- In Venality, Denki Kaminari is a false friend to the "Bakugang", as he's secretly The Mole working for the League of Villains.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- After That Fateful Night: Silent Brook serves as one to Twilight Sparkle, getting close to her for the sole purpose of potentially reaching Nightmare Moon.
- Aftermath of the Games: In Integration, Filly Starlight is afraid of making new friends out of fear that they'll abandon her like she believes Sunburst did. Twilight encourages her by stating the risk is worth it, admitting that others pretended to be her friend when she was younger in hopes of meeting Princess Celestia... or getting her to do their homework for them.
- Always the Quiet Ones: The Rainbooms find Fluttershy's diary, which leaves them with the impression that she never considered them to be friends. Turns out it was actually an English assignment.
- The Demesne Of The Reluctant Twilight Sparkle Downplays this. Twilight's growing friendship with Discord is genuine; however, he realizes that she's deliberately cultivating that friendship for reasons that could be interpreted as ways to keep him under control.
- In First Hoof Account, Sunset Shimmer decides to befriend Cadance in order to learn how she managed to ascend to alicornhood. She later amends this plan to seducing Cadance, even as she finds herself sincerely enjoying her company.
- Project Sunflower: When Erin Olsen/Sunflower starts bonding with the Mane Six, along with Meadowlark and her daughter Marigold, she's afraid that she'll become this, as she was sent to Equestria to find a potential home for humanity. When the truth comes out, and she explains herself, the Mane Six forgive her, but Meadowlark does not.
- Through the Well of Pirene: This is Amelia's initial relationship with Wire and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The moment she sees them as more of a burden than a boon, she promptly writes them off.
- Vengeance of Dawn:
- During her time at the School for Gifted Unicorns, Laurel dealt with multiple ponies pretending to be her friends so that she'd do their homework for them. Laurel was painfully aware of the fact that they were just using her, which is part of why she's so devoted to Breaking Dawn; Dawn was the first pony she met who didn't have any ulterior motives and simply wanted to be her friend.
- Twilight also dealt with this: one of her friends as a filly, Scarlet Shine, was ordered to hang out with her by her parents, who wanted to use that "friendship" as leverage for securing an audience with Princess Celestia.
- While disguised as "Countess Mercedes Zaccone", Breaking Dawn works her way into Twilight's good graces with the intent of poisoning Candence and orchestrating Twilight's downfall.
Naruto
- Accidental Companions: Naruto views the rest of Team 7 this way; Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura tend to treat him more like a Tagalong Kid whose very presence irritates them, and he has no reason to believe they actually care about his safety.
- Your Heart a Haven of Thorns: Naruto eventually realizes that the trust he'd placed in the Sandaime was completely misplaced. While Hiruzen played the role of a grandfatherly figure who repeatedly reassured him that he'd eventually be able to make friends, he did nothing to address how Naruto was being isolated and scorned by most of Konoha. What's worse, Sasuke reveals that his father warned him away from trying to befriend Naruto, explaining that he was the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki and that the Sandaime would see any friendship as a potential alliance. In other words, Hiruzen worked to keep Naruto isolated, lonely and desperate for approval.
Rugrats
- According to The Rugrats Theory, Susie goes along with everything that Angelica tells her, then exploits her trust by turning her tales into the Rugrats cartoon.
RWBY
- A Deceptive Game of Chess: Blake feigns attraction to Weiss in order to lure the heiress into a trap, exploiting her Friendless Background. She soon comes to regret this.
- Ruby from Remnants was popular at her old school but this was only because of the silver eyes (which are associated with powerful huntsman) she inherited from her celebrity mother. Most of her friends only liked Ruby for her eyes, not her character.
- Infighting, Insanity, and Social Ineptitude has Team ERMN, who encourage Cardin's Fantastic Racism towards faunus. Cardin doesn't take it well when Jaune baits them into revealing what they really think about him while he's in earshot.
Super Smash Bros.
- In The Boy Behind The Hands, Logan just wants to get himself and his sister away from their abusive home. This spurs him to betray Matt's trust, stealing Snake, Pokémon Trainer and all of his mons aside from Charizard, Ice Climbers, and Wolf so he could sell them for some quick cash.
Teen Titans (2003)
- In Coincidence and Misunderstandings, Starfire convinces herself that Raven was one of these all along, hiding her true demonic nature from the rest of the team for five years and biding her time until she was strong enough to follow in her father's footsteps and try destroying the world.
Undertale
- Flowey is Not a Good Life Coach: Flowey pretends to be Papyrus' friend, deciding to psychologically torment and string him along simply because he's bored and wants to see just how far he can push the trusting skeleton.
Worm
- A Cloudy Path: Albedo attempted to become one of these for Taylor; the only reason she tried getting closer to her was in order to ferret out and learn her secrets. However, Taylor's inner circle proved too difficult for her to penetrate.
- Glow-worm: Downplayed with Laserdream; while she's a sincerely Nice Girl who cares a lot about Captain Marvel, she's also using their friendship as a way to bolster New Wave's credibility after one of their members was killed while in their civilian identity.
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
- Nineteen Eighty-Four:
- O'Brien tricks Winston and Julia into thinking he's their friend and gets him to trust them, especially as far as identifying himself as a member of the Inner Party but is really a member of La Résistance. He then organizes the raid to capture the protagonists, brings them to the Ministry of Love and oversees their torture and brainwashing.
- There's also Mr. Charrington, the kindly old prole who sells Winston the paper and pen that he uses for his diary and later rents out a telescreen-less room for both him and Julia, but in actuality is an agent of the Thought Police whose "telescreen-less" room has a hidden telescreen behind a picture, leading to Winston and Julia's arrest.
- The 39 Clues: Ian Kabra pretended to like Amy so he and his sister could steal the clue from right under Amy and Dan's noses... Only... it isn't quite that simple.
- The fox and the cat in The Adventures of Pinocchio, upon discovering Pinocchio has several gold pieces, proceed to mooch off of him, try to rob and hang him, and later swindle him, all while pretending to be his friends. They do get their comeuppance in the end, and when they beg for Pinocchio to help them, he shows no forgiveness.
- In The Broken Land trilogy by Sean Williams, the young protagonist runs away from home with the help of a more worldly friend who he eventually realizes has been manipulating him all along in order to take advantage of his developing magical gift.
- In Castle Hangnail, Molly never thought Eudaimonia was a good friend, but did think she was a cool older girl who taught her some magic and was simply a bit of an Alpha Bitch. Over the book Molly realizes that Eudaimonia had been manipulating her, stealing her power, and was actually seriously evil.
- Demons Trilogy: Here Be Demons: Murakh has spent centuries occasionally visiting the exiled demons exiled with supplies and encouragement about the future. Steve the Angel points out that this kind of charity from someone who revels in selfish cruelty like any proper demon of Hell should be viewed suspiciously. Steve is right, and Murakh is continuously setting the exiles up to fail, eventually ranting about how he finds their Evil Virtues disgusting and revels in torturing them.
- Nearly half of the Fear Street books will climax with the main character shocked to realize the person trying to ruin (if not outright kill) them is actually their best friend. That leads to a speech revealing this "friend" has long hated them out of jealousy, wanting the other character's boyfriend or some long ago "crime" against them (or their family) the main character never knew about. In a few cases, it's detailed that the entire friendship has all been an act to set them up for this moment.
- ForceFlow, actually a pseudonym for the Big Bad to Tash in Galaxy of Fear. She wasn't the first one, either. It was all in hopes of finding Force-Sensitive people and stealing their Life Energy. Later, Grimpen does something similar, acting friendly and kind so she would wrongly consider him trustworthy.
- Harry Potter:
- Wormtail does this when he betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, even though they were his best friends - though he was more of a Fair-Weather Friend who sold out his buddies in order to save his own life. When his remaining friend, Sirius, chased him down after James and Lily's deaths, Wormtail shouted that Sirius had been the one to sell out the Potters, caused an explosion that killed a dozen innocent people, and faked his death before escaping, pinning the murders of himself, the Potters, and all the other people on Sirius.
- Tom Riddle is a more straight example, doing this to Ginny and, to a lesser extent, Professor Slughorn. There's also the fact that he refers to Death Eaters as his friends, although in reality, they are nothing more than disposable pawns to him.
- Heralds of Valdemar: Herald Myste had this pulled on her as a child three times by guys using her to get close to her best friend (the most attractive girl in the neighborhood). Prince Karathanelan tricks Selenay into wedding him but doesn't survive the "betrayal" part. Lady Naril (never seen 'on screen') pretends she loves Dirk but is actually trying to get close to his handsome friend Kris.
- In Arthur Hailey's Hotel, St. Gregory hotel owner Warren Trent is facing serious financial troubles and may have to sell. Curtis O'Keefe offers to buy the place for his massive chain but Trent is unsure as it's not just him but his employees, who he sees as family. He cites Tom, the hotel's chief bartender for 30 years who Trent would trust with his life. To his shock, O'Keefe produces a report revealing that Tom "has been bleeding you white" almost that entire time. Trent confronts Tom on this and fires him. At which point, Tom sneers that he never saw Trent as anything more than a high and mighty boss and he (and others) are going to enjoy seeing him go out of business. Trent marvels at how he could never realize in 30 years how much his "close, personal friend" hated his guts.
- Ibyabek: Kyeo was ordered to be one to Sarham. It didn't go according to plan.
- The Last Princess of Manchuria: Yoshiko presents herself as a kind and caring confidante to Empress Wanrong, making a show of comforting her when she has a breakdown about her misery in Tianjin and promising to take her to the much better Shanghai (when in reality, she’s going to take Wanrong to Manchuria to join Puyi for his coronation in Changchun). It lasts for all of one day before she reveals her true colors once she’s succeeded in getting Wanrong out of the villa.
- Laughing Jack: Laughing Jack poses as an Imaginary Friend to the young James, who says to his mother that the clown has been playing with him and giving him sweets. But it's all in Jack's sick game to eventually maim him gruesomely.
- The first Night Huntress book has a classmate cozying up to Cat, only to try to kidnap her for a white slavery ring. Turned out she did this to a lot of girls.
- Poor Neru from REAL doesn't have much luck when it comes to friends: he manages to befriend his longtime online crush Likaï, only to get his heart broken when Likaï steals his account to enter the Future Tournament in his place. When Neru manages to contact his three teammates to ask them for help, they all turn their back on him: as it turns out, they just hung out with him in The Metaverse for the bonus points and glory that they got thanks to his talent for video games.
- The Silmarillion:
- Sauron pretends to be Ar-Pharazôn's... well, not exactly friend, but more servant. Pharazôn believes him. Cue Númenor turning to worship of Morgoth, Pharazôn trying to attack Valinor because he thinks it'll give him immortality, and the destruction of Númenor.
- Played with in the story of Beren and Lúthien. Daeron starts out a true friend, but then his love for Lúthien and jealousy of Beren leads to him betraying her to Thingol.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Ser Dontos acts as a friend and confidant to Sansa and promises to help her escape the Lannisters to repay her for saving his life. In actuality he's working for Littlefinger and is willing to sell her out to whoever will pay him for it.
- Shae to Tyrion, she acts as she cares about him but she's really just a Gold Digger who's more than happy to accuse him of crimes he didn't commit for the promise of riches and status.
- One of the themes of Daenerys' storyline is the constant presence of these and her doubts to tell her real allies from those who seek to use her or will at some point betray her. The appendix section dedicated to her in A Dance with Dragons event lists "Her uncertain allies, false friends, and known enemies."
- Lancel Lannister, Falyse Stokeworth, the Kettleblack brothers and poor Sansa (again) should have run the second Cersei smiled at them in either a friendly or seductive fashion. Yup; just using you, suckers. Mind you, Cersei also gets suckered herself: Taena Merryweather and Aurane Waters basically suck up to her primarily to try taking her to the cleaners.
- In one of The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels, it's revealed that Bill was ordered by his queen to seduce Sookie, as part of a plan to use her telepathy for whatever it is a vampire queen needs a telepath for.
- In The Spider and the Fly, the Spider offers anything he thinks will entice the Fly. She finally succumbs to flattery, and he nabs her. In the illustrated book, the Spider is a well-dressed gentleman while the Fly is The Ingenue, and the subtext of an older man about to ruin a young woman is more prominent.
- Teen Power Inc.: In some books, the villain seems to be close friends with sympathetic characters but are really victimizing for completely unjustified reasons.
- In The Ghost of Raven Hill, Terry Bigge and Elmo "Zim" Zimmer II's late fathers were best friends and Zim and Terry have known each other for decades. Terry loans Zim money to keep his struggling newspaper afloat and acts apologetic about how his own debts and obligations are forcing him to demand prompt repayment of the loan at a hard time for Zim. It's all an act: Terry has been sabotaging the paper to put it in debt, plans to sell it to Zim's hated enemy, and privately mocks Zim for being such a Horrible Judge of Character and borrowing from him in the first place.
- In The Missing Millionaire, miserly hotelier Bruce Piggot seems to have a soft spot for his neighbor, the cheerful and generous plasterer Albie, whom he plays cards with and speculates on lottery numbers with. However, however real their Odd Friendship may have been beforehand, it does not survive their lottery ticket winning $2,000,000 while Albie is laid up in bed. Piggot decides to hide the fact that their ticket won and keep Albie's half of the money for himself. He acts like a caring friend who wants to make sure Albie gets better through rest, when he really just wants to keep Albie in bed until the lottery number stops appearing on the news.
- In The Traitor Game, Michael comes to believe that Francis has spent their friendship laughing about their games with his friends. The consequences are nothing short of disastrous.
- Wonder Woman: Warbringer: Jason, to everybody given his hidden motivations, but most clearly to Theo. He openly admits that the only reason he hung out with Theo was that that way he could keep an eye on his father.
- In Worm, Taylor tries to become this to the supervillain gang the Undersiders but finds herself Becoming the Mask.
Live-Action TV
- 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd: When Eddie was a human, he appeared to be close friends with his second in command, Flaco, and the gang members he was the leader of. But when Eddie disappears and is turned into a dog, Flaco reveals that he never really liked Eddie and considers him a coward for disappearing, and now he can take his place as the school bully. Eddie was genuinely heartbroken and shocked because he thought the two of them were genuine friends, only for Flaco to reveal that he was faking their friendship. It's implied that the other gang members were faking their friendship with Eddie and with each other, and Flaco and his gang are fake friends with each other.
- Nina Myers on 24 is the show's biggest example of this, being Jack Bauer's primary confidant at CTU in season 1 until she killed his wife while trying to escape after being outed as a mole working for the bad guys. She would then go on to become a recurring villain in seasons 2 and 3.
- On Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ward turns out to be this when it's revealed mid-way through the first season he's a member of HYDRA. Interestingly, in season 2, Ward seems to still think he'll be Easily Forgiven but the team makes it clear they now see him as just the enemy. A telling bit is when Fitz is amazed Ward thinks an "I'm sorry" makes up for nearly killing Fitz by dumping him out of a plane. When Ward states that he "still considers us friends," Fitz snaps that he now knows Ward was never their friend but just playing a role.
- Alma Gêmea:
- Cristina pretends to be happy for Rafael and Serena despite being attracted to him, which makes her earn his friendship and respect. Rafael keeps telling her all of his plans and asking her for suggestions. She also pretends to be Serena's friend, and she easily trusts her. She exploits both of her false friendships with the couple to manipulate them, turning them against each other, and to obtain information.
- Cristina also pretends to be Dalila's friend, but she's just helping Raul to string her around. She uses her fake niceness to convince her to marry another man, one willing to assume the parenthood of her child in Raul's place.
- Astrid: In the school flashback scenes in "The Haunting", one of Astrid's female classmates initially appears sympathetic to her and interested in her talk about puzzles, but then joins in with the bullying and cruelly imitates her.
- The Barrier: Iván, a government official's son considers that all of his father's friends are the false kind. Since he's making that statement in response to being told that his father lost a friend who was his one remaining true one, Iván's father doesn't take kindly to it at all.
- Columbo admits to doing this (once) at the end of one of the ABC TV movies.
- The final arc for Catherine in CSI is her old friend Laura runs into her at a party and soon lets Catherine know her husband Mark is into some major criminal deals. Laura appears to be among those killed in a bombing and Catherine is convinced Mark did it to shut her up. However, when Catherine's own life is in danger, she soon realizes someone is trying to make it look like she "quit" the team to take revenge on Mark before vanishing. Catherine is confused as every clue seems to show that Mark actually has no idea of the illegal stuff happening in his company or his wife's death. Sara points out how Catherine is ignoring Occam's Razor: That this whole thing started when Catherine's "old friend" who she hadn't seen in years just happened to run into her at a party, just happened to "let" Catherine know about her husband being a crook and then is killed. Sure enough, Laura was the real mastermind of the scheme, faking her death and trying to trick Catherine into a scheme to get her husband. Arrested, Laura claims she picked Catherine because "I know you" and how she goes for what she wants in life and sees nothing wrong with using Catherine.
Catherine: You're never gonna see the outside world again. Tell me whose life you'd rather have now. Oh and you do know me but not as well as you think. Because when you chose me, you should have known it would end like this.
- Dexter: Season 3 sets out to answer the question whether Dexter, a Serial-Killer Killer who naturally keeps his activities secret, could have a friend. Spoilers, he can't. In more detail, Dexter accidentally kills a man, Oscar Prado, who turns out to be the little brother to ADA Miguel Prado. To cover his tracks, Dexter tracks down and kills the primary suspect, which is witnessed by Miguel. Miguel is incredibly thankful and starts to build a friendship with Dexter, who after some time agrees to make him a part of the vigilante killings. Miguel immediately uses it to murder a defense attorney who was simply pissing him off, the evidence he gave Dexter to buy his trust turns out to be fake, and Miguel is revealed to truly be a manipulative narcissist who was using him all along. Dexter ultimately kills him since he now fits the code.
- Game of Thrones:
- Hi Honey, I'm Home!: Skunk pretends to be Chucky's friend to get him to help rob a neighbor's house.
- In How to Get Away with Murder, it's eventually revealed that on the day of her death, Lila admitted that she only hung out with Rebecca because she felt sorry for her and because she wanted a distraction from her stressful life. She ends their friendship by stating that she's too good for Rebecca, a "trashed-out druggie whore", to hang out with.
- In Kamen Rider Fourze, Ryusei/Kamen Rider Meteor at firstnote After Episode 31 he becomes a true companion though.
- JK establishes himself as a "friend" who takes advantage of others and isn't ashamed to admit this. Gentarou accepts him anyway and makes An Aesop about how you have to accept a person's worse sides too if you want to befriend them. JK ends up getting better.
- Kamen Rider Gaim: Ryoma Sengoku is this to Takatora Kureshima, who spends much of the series unaware that his longtime friend and trusted advisor is really plotting behind his back.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has Sauron, the great deceiver, as its Villain Protagonist who:
- Appears in the first season as scruffy Anti-Hero Halbrand who charms and manipulates Galadriel into thinking he is the lost king of the southlands, with copious Ship Tease ensuing.
- In the prologue to the second season, we see how Sauron became Halbrand and how he joined the party of human refugees from season one. He steals his kingly crest from an old man who had been nothing but kind to him as he is dying, and after that, he gains control of the sea wyrm that attacks that ship. It's heavily implied he summoned the creature to eat his human companions from the raft so he could be alone with Galadriel.
- He befriends Celebrimbor with expert flattery so even though Celebrimbor has been warned not to treat with Halbrand when the Tall, Dark, and Handsome human shows up in Eregion, Celebrimbor quickly falls for his manipulations. He then transforms into Annatar, an angelic looking elf, and convinces Celebrimbor he's there to help.
- He also charms and manipulates Celebrimbor's Number Two, Mirdania, flirting with her and convincing her Celebrimbor has gone mad. He promises her a reward for her loyalty, only to murder her as part of his gaslighting campaign against Celebrimbor.
- Love Alarm: Despite supposedly being Jo-jo's best friend, Jung-go takes a picture of Jo-jo and Sun-oh kissing and spreads it through the internet, in order to ruin her relationship with Il-sik, who she has a crush on.
- An episode of Monk sees Andy Richter play a man who pretends to befriend Monk in order to obtain a piece of evidence Monk unknowingly has that could implicate him. Even after discovering that he's a criminal, in the end, Monk still considers him a better friend to him than many people he's met in the past.
- Once Upon a Time (2011): In Season 1, Regina is this to Kathryn, pretending to care for her when her husband has an affair. However, unbeknownst to Kathryn, Regina is the one who erased her true memories in the first place and is only on Kathryn's side because she hates Mary Margaret.
- Zelena is this to Mary Margaret, posing as her midwife in Season 3 in order to get close to her baby, which she intends to use as an ingredient in her Time Travel Spell.
- The Outer Limits (1995): In "Abduction", Cody Phillips claims that everyone that he knows, including his so-called friends, blame him for everything in life.
- In Oz Schillinger arranges for Chris Keller to meet Tobias Beecher, Schillinger's former sex slave, with the intent of gaining his trust and seducing him. A mutual attraction instantly forms between them, and the two eventually exchange confessions of love. Unfortunately for Beecher, he finds out that the man he fell in love with was working with his arch enemy all along (and informs him that he never loved him right before breaking Beecher's arms and legs). Keller clearly enjoys the beating but is briefly seen experiencing a moment of regret when he returns to his empty cell and eventually realizes that he has fallen in love with Beecher.
- Ryan O'Reily and pretty much everyone he ever purports to be friends with, but probably the biggest example is the way he ingratiates himself with Nino Schibetta while secretly slipping ground glass into the man's food.
- Pobol y Cwm:
- In a 2025 storyline, local councillor Hwyl secretly accepts a role with Quantum Hydro Works and starts manipulating villagers to advance the company's schemes. When Diane's son is arrested for drug dealing, Hwyl earnestly urges her not to resign from the council, saying that despite their political differences it needs her leadership. In truth, he thinks her presence will weaken and compromise the council so that the Quantum Hydro Works construction plans won't be scrutinised or challenged.
- In a May 2025 episode, Hwyl arranges a fool's errand for elderly shopkeeper Megan, sending her away to collect an urgent, non-existent charity donation. He kindly offers to mind her shop while she's away, and Megan trusts him to do so. He's actually having her evicted so that the shop can become the new Quantum Hydro Works office — as soon as Megan is out, he brings handyman Mathew in to measure it up for the new furniture.
- In the Red Dwarf episode "Queeg", Rimmer doesn't believe in friendship. citing that the only time he believed he had a friend was at school, with his fellow Space Scout Porky Roebuck. When the Scouts went on a survival trip, eating only what they could catch, a group decided to hunt and eat Rimmer. Rimmer expected his best friend to save him, but "it turned out Porky was the ringleader, and had actually bagsied my right buttock." In "Marooned", it turns out there was also an occasion when Porky threw Rimmer's favourite shoes into a septic tank ... while he was wearing them.
- In Robin Hood (BBC), Marian cultivates a "friendship" of sorts with Guy of Gisborne so that she can pass on information to Robin. She even goes so far as to pull off a perfectly executed Decoy Damsel ploy, which Guy falls for hook, line, and sinker. Guy was something of a False Friend himself considering he seems more than ready to have Marian punished if she disobeys him, and when he learns that she's in love with Robin Hood, he stabs her to death.
- In Roots and its 2016 remake, Missy is seemingly established as Kizzy's closest friend from childhood. She even goes as far as protecting Kizzy from racist relatives and teaching her how to read. However, when Noah was revealed to be carrying papers forged by Kizzy, she doesn't bother protecting Kizzy from being sold to another slave owner. She later has the gall to feel betrayed for Kizzy helping out some abolitionists.
- Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace:
- A Ruo pretends to be Ruyi's friend while secretly plotting against her.
- Langhua acts as if she likes Xiyue while poisoning her so she can't have a child and finally killing her so she can't reveal Langhua's crimes.
- Yuyan pretended to be Ruiji's friend but killed her child and blamed it on Langhua. She played her part so well that years later Ruiji still believes Langhua is responsible. She doesn't react well when she learns the truth..
- The Saturday Night Live sketch "Three Sad Virgins" has Pete Davidson invite the Please Don't Destroy trio for a music video collaboration, only for it to become increasingly obvious that Pete's simply using the video to stroke his own ego at their expense. Once the trio have had enough of this and tell Pete to call the whole thing off, he seemingly relents...only to reveal that he also invited Taylor Swift for the video, and she joins in on the mockery.
- On Shark, Jessica's old friend Laura Fields, a medical examiner she's worked with for years, gives her word on who killed a reporter. The problem is, the supposedly sure suspect has an airtight alibi. Another M.E. says there's something wrong with this report as it turns out the reporter had been investigating a man in prison who's long claimed innocence in a murder where Fields was the M.E. It turns out Laura killed the reporter herself before she could expose that Fields had faked the evidence in that earlier case. Jessica is hurt by this but still wants to back Laura as making a mistake...until, at the trial, Laura throws Jessica under the bus by claiming that not only was she fully aware of this when prosecuting the man but even encouraged Laura to lie about it so Jessica could get the win. Jessica is rocked by how her "friend" is ready to ruin Jessica's career just to save herself.
- The short-lived series Traveler has best friends Jay and Tyler visiting a museum with their college buddy Will Traveler. They pull a huge prank skating through it while leaving bags behind and as they leave, Will calls them up to say "sorry." The museum is rocked by an explosion and when Jay and Tyler reach their hotel, they see the news blaming them as the bombers. They try to find Will only to realize that not only is there no record of him ever existing but in all the photos taken over the years, Will has made sure his face is never seen. It hits Jay and Tyler that from the day they met him, Will has been setting them up specifically for this bombing and everything he's done was just to win their trust.
- The Twilight Zone (1985):
- In "The Shadow Man", Danny Hayes knows that the Shadow Man will never hurt him as the person under whose bed he sleeps. His apparent bravery in going over to Lianna Ames' house at night earns him many false friends, including Lianna and various popular students who used to either ignore him or make fun of him. In the process, Danny ignores Peter, his one true friend, and takes no action to prevent the Shadow Man from hurting anyone else.
- In "The Trunk", Willy Gardner finds an old abandoned trunk in a room of the Hotel Winchester, of which he has the manager, and soon discovers that it can grant his every wish. He uses it to fill his small room with expensive clothes, pieces of electronic equipment, and bottles of wine and invites the hotel guests and the locals Candy, Danny, Rocco, and Cap to a party. He comes to think of them as his new friends but it does not take him long to realize that they are merely using him because of his apparent newfound wealth. The only person who truly likes or respects him is an elderly guest named Mrs. Kudaba.
- HG from Warehouse 13 does this using the other agents to get an artifact so she could destroy the world though she does somewhat become the mask, getting talked down from doing this when her friend tells her to shoot her instead of being a coward and killing her with the rest of the world.
Myka: If I am wrong, then kill me. Do it! Kill me now! I mean, we're all gonna die anyway right, so what's the difference? So shoot me! Shoot me now. Kill me. But not like this. Not like a coward. I want you to look me in the eyes and. Take. My. Life.
Music
- "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?" Yes, that's actually the title.
- "I Was Only Kidding" by "Weird Al" Yankovic is this.
- An early Joan Jett and the Blackhearts song, "Fake Friends" is pretty much about this trope, and why it is better to cut ties with those who are only friendly to you when it is convenient for them.
You got nothin' to lose, you don't lose when you lose fake friends!
- "Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (But Watch Your Close Friend)," originally by Blind Willie Davis, is about how your enemies don't know you well enough to hurt you as deeply as your "friends."
- The Stranglers warn of these in "Skin Deep":
Many people tell you that they're your friend
You believe them, you need them for what's 'round the river bend
Make sure that you're receiving the signals they send
Cos brother, you've only got two hands to lend
Podcasts
- Dice Funk: Jayne hates Rinaldo so much that she tries to sell him into slavery.
Professional Wrestling
- Kevin Steen and El Generico used to be friends, but not quite as close of friends as Generico thought they were, and Steen slowly but surely drifted apart from him until, well...Steen was this trope.
- Jimmy Jacobs acted this way towards Ta'Darius Thomas in Ring of Honor for the purpose of expanding his Power Stable Decade and breaking up rival Tag Team Adrenaline Rush, which Thomas was a part of with actual friend ACH.
- No one in Valkyrie treated Su Yung any better than a dog, except for unofficial member Sweet Saraya, who treated Yung the way she treated her kids. Allysin Kay was the only member who pretended to respect Yung as an independent human woman, simply to get Yung to let her guard down so that it would hurt more when Kay inevitably showed her true colors.
- After the Bro-mans caused the The Beautiful People's second TNA disbanding when Robbie got Velvet Sky fired, Angelina Love, who had tried to rejoin the group early into her fourth TNA run, was happy to see Sky go.
- After breaking up The Shield, Seth Rollins claims he was this to Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. Though he tends to slip and show that he may have cared about them more than he'd like to admit. Later on, this became fully subverted with his Heel–Face Turn, where it was confirmed that this was a complete lie that he was trying to make himself believe so he wouldn't have to deal with guilt.
- Adam Cole and MJF were forced to tag together in the Blind Tag Team Eliminator. At first the two hated each other but over the course of the next couple months the two would become "best friends" much to the disdain of his actual best friend Roderick Strong and the Kingdom. They won the ROH tag team titles at All In 2023 against Aussie Open and would lose the tag team titles 4 months later to the devil's masked men. At World's End... right as the two were about to be attacked by the devil's masked men, the lights went out and when they came up... the masked men were now behind Adam Cole revealing that Adam Cole was the devil and the masked men were The Kingdom and Wardlow. The rest of the now Undisputed Kingdom attacked MJF.
Theatre
- Cyrano de Bergerac: Given the shallow Parisian society at The Cavalier Years, this play is full of them:
- De Guiche pays a fine court of obsequious noblemen, but the nobles really distrust and despise him because he is a Gascon. They only bow to him because he is successful.
Second Marquis: Faugh!...Another Gascon!
First Marquis: Ay, but the cold, supple Gascon—that is the stuff success is made of!
Believe me, we had best make our bow to him.
- The poets who frequent Raguenau's rotisserie claim to love Raguenau's poetry, but they only want to leech off him.
- Cyrano defies this trope with all his will, as lampshaded in Act II Scene VII: People (crowding round Cyrano):
My friend!...my friend...
Cyrano:
Meseems that yesterday
I had not all these friends!
Le Bret (delighted):
Success!
A young Marquis (hurrying up with his hands held out):
My friend,
Didst thou but know...
Cyrano:
Thou!...Marry!...thou!...Pray when
Did we herd swine together, you and I!
note In French, using "tu" is equivalent to being on a First-Name Basis with someone, and people you don't know using it out of the blue is very jarring
- Iago of Shakespeare's Othello pretends to be the titular character's trustworthy adviser while secretly plotting his demise out of jealousy and For the Evulz.
Video Games
Web Animation
- Etra chan saw it!:
- In one episode, Hiiragi and Akane were seemingly best friends with Tsutsuji, but it's revealed they were just using her, and never thought of her as a friend. First, Hiiragi asked Tsutsuji out on a date, with Akane recording, with the intention of humiliating her, but it failed because Tsutsuji turned him down. They then resort to pranking her at a summer festival, keeping her there until it ends, and having Tachibana scare her in the bathroom.
- In this story, Kuroki looked up to his best friend Hiiragi until it was revealed that Hiiragi was stealing his crush behind his back just to make him suffer.
- Yuzuriha appears to be Akane's best friend since middle school; however, it turns out that she is the real cuprit behind Akane's misfortunes because she dated her boyfriend behind her back for thrill and superiority.
- Manga Rabbit HoméNoba: Hideki Doi only hired Tomoya Fujiwara and made him Vice-President of the company for the profits he would bring to the company with his talent as a writer. After Tomoya found him dating his girlfriend Iyami, he betrayed and fired him while she broke up with him.
- Manga Room: Claire's circle of friends ditched her when she became poor after her father's company went bankrupt and they even mocked her when they see her. They change their attitude towards her when they find out that she became rich again.
- The Music Freaks: A downplayed sympathetic example with Jake. It's implied that he only began hanging around Drew, Henry and Liam to avoid being bullied. However, it's also implied that Jake does care for them on some level, such as when he defends them in the seventh episode.
- Felix in the 12th season of Red vs. Blue. It turns out that he'd been working with Locus all along, and was hired to wipe out the entire population of Chorus.
- RWBY: Emerald Sustrai seems friendly and chatty in her conversation with the eponymous heroines at the beginning of Volume 3, but the moment they part ways, Emerald makes very clear to Mercury how much she really despises them and finds their constantly happy, positive attitudes annoying. She's the one responsible for framing Yang and tricking Pyrrha into destroying Penny. By the time of Volume 8 however after learning what Salem's true goal was, she leaves Salem's faction and joins the heroes. while they were hesitant at first, Emerald tells the heroes she's switched sides, and both her and the heroes get along better.
- SparkTales:
- Story Time Animated: Marle became a fake friend for Aria when she ditched Cassidy for her. She didn't show up for her group science project and even framed Aria for ruining the prom when it was actually Marle's fault.
Webcomics
- The Dreamland Chronicles: Here.
- Happens quite a bit in the Gambit Pileup that is Erfworld. Since Erfworld also features quite a few Punny Names from earth, the two untrustworthy allies of one side are actually called Frenemy and Quisling.
- In Girl Genius, Tarvek and Gil's childhood friendship was real. Sadly, circumstances separated them and they both became convinced that the other was a False Friend due to some more unfortunate circumstances. They are currently Fire-Forged Friends / Vitriolic Best Buds.
- In The Guide to a Healthy Relationship, Apollo becomes friends with Daniel, the boyfriend of his childhood best friend Julian. Daniel manipulates them both to sabotage their friendship.
- MegaTokyo. Miho did this to Piro sometime before the start of the series.
- In The Order of the Stick, Nale drives Elan to the Despair Event Horizon by telling him that Haley is this trope, taking advantage of incriminating evidence and Haley's inability to defend herself to gloat about Haley's supposed betrayal of Elan's friends and Elan's stupidity in not seeing that she was Evil All Along. Elan is briefly convinced and goes into a murderous fury, telling Haley that he hates her, before Haley finally manages to spit it out.
- Nale also uses a suggestion spell to make Elan angrier, hence the uncharacteristic murderous fury.
- Tower of God has several people like this: Hoh, Nia, and most notably Rachel. Later, Apple, Khun's hacker in the second season, turns out to be a FUG agent.
- In Tellurion, this is how the lead guy is regarded by the gang of thieves, in the beginning, it might be a bit of a stretch to call them "friends". But they definitely aren't worth any trust in the end.
- unOrdinary: Arlo pretends to befriend John, but in actuality is getting him to trust him just enough that Arlo can trick him into an ambush to force him to use his powers and force him to take part in the tiered hierarchy Arlo is such a firm believer in.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Amphibia:
- Subverted with Sasha. Anne's description of her friendship with Sasha leads the audience to believe this, but once the character is properly introduced several episodes later, it's made very clear that Sasha does legitimately see Anne as her best friend. She just has a twisted idea of how friendship works, being incredibly manipulative, possessive, and controlling.
- Played with by King Andrias, who presents himself as The Good King of Amphibia who mentored Anne's friend Marcy and is happy to help the three human girls get back home by restoring the Calamity Box, the Interdimensional Travel Device that brought them to Amphibia. Once he gets the restored box, Andrias reveals that he wanted the box because it's an Artifact of Doom that belonged to his ancestors, who were Multiversal Conquerors that he wishes to honor their legacy by completing their work. He was playing the girls and their allies for fools the entire time, and essentially admits he saw Marcy as nothing more than a pawn to his master plan. However, Andrias admits later he did grow to like Marcy to a degree, but as the last time he had genuine friends they betrayed him plus being whispered poisoned words by The Core for most of his life after that, he ultimately would turn on her regardless of any personal feelings.
Marcy: Andrias, this wasn't the plan! You said no one would get hurt!
King Andrias: I would have said anything if it meant you'd deliver the Box to me fully charged. Hate to break it to ya kiddo, but you've been duped.
- A Heel–Face Turn example occurs in Avatar: The Last Airbender. In "The Boiling Rock", Azula gets this after Mai and Ty Lee turn their backs on her. It is possible that they were never friends with her in the first place since they were scared of her. It's also possible that she just went too far this time and they weren't willing to put up with her any longer. In other words, this trope really applied to Azula the whole time.
- Batman: Caped Crusader: Throughout the first season, it appears that Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent have a close friendship, two of them often hanging out when Bruce is in his civilian identity and when Harvey is off work. However, the last two episodes implied that Bruce only hung out with Harvey to keep up with appearances and couldn’t stand the man otherwise, mainly because he was a crooked lawyer. This is shown in the Season 1 finale, where Bruce, while trying to convince a reluctant Harvey to make a deal, briefly cracks and calls him out having suddenly "grown a conscience".
Dent: You know anyone else who did what I did wouldn't be able to make a deal.
Bruce: But you can. You're not somebody else.
Dent: That's not really justice, is it?
Bruce: [Slips into his gruff "Batman" voice.] Don't start growing a conscience now, Dent. [Snaps back to "Regular Bruce" voice.] Just help yourself, that's all I'm saying.
- In an episode of the animated adaptation to The Berenstain Bears the new kid, Ferdie, befriends the popular girl, Queenie, not knowing that she's just using him to get his homework answers. It isn't until Ferdie sees Queenie laughing at him after he took a football to the gut that he realizes the truth. Queenie eventually apologizes to Ferdie, both for laughing at him and pretending to be his friend.
- Captain N: The Game Master flanderises the Castlevania character Alucard, who was a sworn enemy of Dracula, as this. Rather than continue helping them, Alucard chooses to betray his friends during the raid on Dracula's Castle.
- Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls was this to The Author (aka Stanford "Ford" Pines). The Journal's original entry on Bill describes him in glowing terms as the nicest, most trustworthy being in the universe. After he discovers Bill's true nature, he crosses out the whole entry and describes him as the most dangerous and evil being in the universe, to never be summoned at any cost.
- Hilda: After her friendship with Hilda and David got severely strained due to the events in episode 9, Frida befriends a teen named Kelly. Kelly is a Marra (a creature that gives people nightmares) and clearly doesn't have the best intentions with Frida. She actively prevents Frida from reconciling with Hilda and David, sees to it Frida comes to a nighttime meeting of the Marra instead of going to the Sparrow Scouts camp, and when the Black Hound shows up, she doesn't hesitate to use Frida as a distraction for the beast.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures episode "Tale of the Demon Tail", Hsi Wu the Sky Demon invoked this trope as part of a gambit; he changes into the form of a human boy named "Seymour" and befriends Jade Chan, gaining her trust so that he can be allowed entrance into Uncle's shop, and then retrieve his lost severed tail that they seized from him. Jade, who's a lonely kid at her school, is very happy to make a new friend, and she even grows a crush on him... too bad that "Seymour" has to inevitably reveal his true identity and not-so-friendly intentions in the climax.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which (obviously) focuses on friendship, has several antagonists who are this:
- Tirek plays this role to Discord in the episode "Twilight's Kingdom - Part 2".
- Trixie starts off like this in "No Second Prances", where she pretends to be Starlight's friend just to get back at Twilight. But as the episode goes on, Trixie starts to consider Starlight a friend and she eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
- Gladmane from "Viva Las Pegasus" claims to be a "friendship connoisseur", and his employees laud him as kind, genuine and compassionate. However, it's later revealed that he willingly sows discord between his employees so they're too busy fighting with each other to take their acts on the road, all so they'll keep making money for his resort.
- The Season 8 finale, "School Raze" reveals Cozy Glow as this. Being not so different from her pen pal, Tirek, the manipulative and sociopathic filly believes that friendship is a means to gain power, and gaining many friends to her means getting more power.
- In one episode of Recess, Gretchen befriends a little girl named Becky while getting ready for the school science fair, only to find out that Becky was pretending to be her friend so she can steal her project.
- In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack and the Warrior Woman", Jack meets and befriends Ikra, who claims to have a similar tragic backstory like he does, and joins him on a quest to find a magic jewel so that Jack could return home... only for Ikra to betray him by smashing the jewel, and then reveals that "she" was actually Aku in disguise all along; much to Jack's shock, rage, and sorrow.
- In The Simpsons episode "Bart's Girlfriend", Jessica Lovejoy serves as one to Bart Simpson. She pretends to befriend and fall in love with him, only so she can act as bad as she wants; knowing that if she gets caught, she can always blame Bart and let him take the fall. If not for Lisa, it would have worked.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
- Especially to Scorpia and Entrapta, who did think of Catra as their friend, if not a dysfunctional one. Offscreen, they have spent some quality time together, which Scorpia took pictures of. But Catra is quite manipulative in the relationship. She did manipulate Entrapta into sticking around, and Scorpia's devotion to her makes her the perfect Yes Woman in her eyes, to the point that Scorpia became an Extreme Doormat to her. However, Catra would sooner throw them under the bus if they don't agree with her. When Entrapta's calculations lead her to decide opening the portal is not a good idea, Catra decides to have her sent to Beast Island. Seeing Catra's behavior take a dip in Season 4, Scorpia at first thought Catra was just having one of those days, and believed that if Catra was a real friend, she would still come around even if Scorpia screwed up. After making up a lie that she accidentally damaged Emily's memory bank, Catra calls her useless, leading Scorpia to realize Catra was never her friend and decides to ditch her for good.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- "F.U.N." is all about Plankton pretending to befriend Spongebob as part of yet another scheme to obtain the secret recipe for the Krabby Patty.
- "Porous Pockets" involves a large crowd of people leeching off of Spongebob after he earns a small fortune. Once it dries up, they instantly abandon him.
- In South Park, Butters considers Cartman to be a friend that he can hang out and do fun stuff with. Cartman takes advantage of this and frequently manipulates Butters into being a pawn for his latest scheme, uses him as a scapegoat for to pin his actions on, or even outright bullies and embarrasses him at school.
- In Storm Hawks, Master Cyclonis disguises herself as a crystal expert named Lark in an attempt to infiltrate the Storm Hawks and learn more about Piper in the aptly-named "Best Friends Forever". Piper originally connects with her thanks to Cyclonis saving her life in a storm and their shared passion for crystals and sees her as her new BFF, though she figures out the deception around the two-thirds mark and they fight it out. Interestingly enough, Cyclonis herself becomes impressed enough by Piper during all of this that she offers her a place in her empire and as shown by her failure to kill Piper with a crystal that, in Piper's own words, doesn't work on friends "even those who were only friends for a moment", a part of her did consider a Piper a genuine friend at least briefly.
- Tangled: The Series: The Enchanted Girl to Cassandra. She just sees the latter as a tool in her Evil Plan, promising her glory and revenge just to snatch it all away later. Whether she genuinely saw Cass as a kindred spirit is debatable, but she's still not the friend she claims she wants to be.
- Brought up once in the original Thunder Cats. "Better an honest enemy than a false friend."
- In ThunderCats (2011), Pumyra.
- Terra in Teen Titans (2003), though sympathetically so.
- She's much, much nastier in the comics, as Terra was not a lost girl brainwashed by Slade. She was a pure psychopath that Slade was almost scared of (You read that right). Worse is that she was also Slade's underage girlfriend. What makes it especially hilarious is that at no point in the lead-up of the comic arc does she ever really pretend that she doesn't dislike nearly everyone on the team nor isn't lying constantly to them, so the Titans, in retrospect, were Too Dumb to Live.
- Malchior is this to Raven in the "Spellbound" episode. He pretends to be the hero unjustly sealed by the evil dragon as a Last Breath Bullet and manages to play on her insecurities to worm his way into her heart in order to get her to free him, revealing he is the evil dragon who was Sealed Evil in a Can instead once she does.
- And Blackfire, Starfire's sister, pretended to care for her sister while framing her for the crimes she committed so Starfire would get taken to jail instead. Starfire eventually finds out the truth and engages her in battle which leads to Blackfire rightfully getting captured by the police.
- In The Venture Bros., Jonas Venture Sr. and the Blue Morpho teamed up on a few adventures together and seemed to be good friends. But then it's revealed that Jonas had recorded the Blue Morpho cheating on his wife and used the tape to blackmail him into becoming Jonas' personal attack dog. Then after the Blue Morpho's death, Jonas "revived" him as a mindless cyborg, used him as a butler when he lost interest in him, and finally unceremoniously tossed his "friend" into the garbage after the cyborg snapped and attacked Rusty. Also, it's heavily implied that the "fertility treatments" Jonas gave the Blue Morpho's wife to help her conceive was actually just him sleeping with her.
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