Tropescilloscope: Decoy Protagonist

The story begins with someone who's not the actual protagonist, who will appear later. (read more at tvtropes.org)

More Tropes Unusually Uninteresting Sight Playing Gertrude Death Seeker Green-Eyed Monster No Antagonist Black and Gray Morality Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism Vacation Films Jitter Cam Pimped-Out Dress Badass Grandpa The Chick It's Personal Fatal Flaw Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene Heel Realization Eye Scream Bottomless Magazines Sci-Fi Horror Sequel Hook MacGuffin Bittersweet Ending How We Got Here Offscreen Moment of Awesome Department of Redundancy Department The Ditz Spiteful Spit Mama Bear Deconstruction Police are Useless Boom, Headshot! Take That! Famous Last Words A Father to His Men The Bad Guy Wins Empathic Environment Kids Are Cruel What the Hell, Hero? Drugs Are Bad Betty and Veronica Match Cut An Axe to Grind Deadpan Snarker Affably Evil The Vamp Evil vs. Evil Good Is Not Nice The Power of Love Historical Villain Upgrade All Girls Want Bad Boys Here We Go Again! Nice Hat Took a Level in Badass Romantic False Lead Freudian Excuse World of Ham Dirty Coward Film Series Daddy's Girl The Big Guy Cain and Abel Animal Motifs Line-of-Sight Name Toplessness from the Back Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Obfuscating Stupidity Blood from the Mouth Jerkass Has a Point The '50s Manchild Left the Background Music On Noodle Incident Car Fu More Dakka Facial Horror Novelization Hope Spot Parental Neglect Storming the Castle Music Stories Training Montage Off-into-the-Distance Ending Time Skip Love Triangle Determinator Plot Hole Downer Ending Fanservice Easily Forgiven Heroic BSoD Accidental Murder Ascended Extra Even Evil Has Loved Ones Gratuitous English Major Injury Underreaction Stealth Hi/Bye Creative Closing Credits Leave the Camera Running Lock and Load Montage Crucified Hero Shot Double Entendre Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Roaring Rampage of Revenge Real Life Writes the Plot Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Take a Third Option Five-Man Band Mr. Fanservice As You Know Historical-Domain Character Bad Boss Earn Your Happy Ending The Smurfette Principle Better to Die than Be Killed Country Matters Beta Couple Flashback Martial Arts Movie Villainous Breakdown The Cameo Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Tap on the Head Shut Up, Hannibal! Military and Warfare Films No OSHA Compliance Mind Screw Documentary Contrived Coincidence Framing Device Title Drop Mr. Exposition Shipper on Deck Heterosexual Life-Partners War Is Hell Black Best Friend Woman Scorned Blatant Lies Black Comedy Rape My Greatest Failure Punch-Clock Villain Pretty in Mink Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie Femme Fatale Non-Indicative Name Unresolved Sexual Tension Beauty Is Never Tarnished Break the Cutie Enemy Mine She's Got Legs Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies An Aesop Dirty Old Man Bland-Name Product Handicapped Badass Auto Erotica Disappeared Dad One Steve Limit Nothing Is Scarier Skewed Priorities Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Ungrateful Bastard Alpha Bitch Wicked Cultured Totally Radical I Have Your Wife Evil Laugh The Mole Spared by the Adaptation Bloodless Carnage N-Word Privileges Black Comedy Dropped a Bridge on Him Pay Evil unto Evil The Atoner The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Calling the Old Man Out Superhero Sadistic Choice Thriller Reality Ensues Punny Name A God Am I Hollywood Law Improvised Weapon Disproportionate Retribution What You Are in the Dark '80s Hair Fantastic Racism Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Camera Abuse Curb-Stomp Battle Drives Like Crazy Unwitting Instigator of Doom Made of Explodium Author Appeal Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Light Is Not Good Parental Abandonment Pragmatic Villainy Monumental Damage Faking the Dead Cool Old Lady Sinister Minister Affectionate Parody Darker and Edgier Chewing the Scenery Rule of Funny Man on Fire The '70s Pretty Little Headshots Poor Communication Kills Lampshade Hanging As Long as It Sounds Foreign Retired Badass Karmic Death Silence Is Golden Stylistic Suck Damsel in Distress Riddle for the Ages The Stoic Early-Bird Cameo Silent Movie Off with His Head! Evil Plan Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Apocalypse How Destination Defenestration Bare Your Midriff Hate Sink Brainless Beauty After the End Hypocrite Red Oni, Blue Oni Butt-Monkey Self-Deprecation Bloodier and Gorier Body Horror La Résistance Reckless Gun Usage Race Against the Clock The Hero Older Than They Look Genre Shift A Minor Kidroduction Hoist by His Own Petard Wrong Genre Savvy The Alcoholic Decoy Protagonist Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping Too Dumb to Live Up to Eleven The Alleged Car Big Bad Product Placement Distracted by the Sexy Meaningful Echo Adaptational Villainy Sealed Evil in a Can You Killed My Father Exactly What It Says on the Tin Blackmail Anti-Villain All Just a Dream Eagleland Does This Remind You of Anything? Bolivian Army Ending Retirony Hidden Depths Eureka Moment The Bully Everyone Has Standards Show Within a Show Crapsack World Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Insistent Terminology Driven to Suicide Adult Fear Heroic Sacrifice Video Credits Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Asshole Victim Double-Meaning Title What Happened to the Mouse? Scenery Gorn Dwindling Party Brother–Sister Incest Comically Missing the Point She Cleans Up Nicely The Hero Dies Hypocritical Humor Malevolent Masked Men Continuity Nod Every Car Is a Pinto Central Theme Disguised in Drag Death Glare Never Trust a Trailer Naïve Newcomer Demonic Possession Big "NO!" Gender Flip Grievous Bottley Harm Jump Scare Alliterative Name Adaptation Distillation Love at First Sight All for Nothing Fish out of Water I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Parental Substitute I Need a Freaking Drink Informed Ability Dying Moment of Awesome Danny Peary Cult Movies List Gilligan Cut Sassy Black Woman Abhorrent Admirer Cruel and Unusual Death Mugging the Monster Drowning My Sorrows Adaptational Badass Improbable Weapon User Taking You with Me NO INDOOR VOICE The Voiceless Cool Shades Together in Death Author Avatar Logo Joke Cool Car Sequel Escalation Fiery Redhead Getting Crap Past the Radar Men Are the Expendable Gender Knight Templar Ambiguous Ending The Quiet One Greater-Scope Villain Costume Porn Anachronism Stew Works Set in World War II There Is No Kill Like Overkill Implacable Man Belligerent Sexual Tension In the Back Big-Bad Ensemble Air-Vent Passageway Evil Counterpart Wounded Gazelle Gambit Rule of Three Dressing as the Enemy Sexy Discretion Shot Not Even Bothering with the Accent Bi the Way Black Dude Dies First Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Serial Killer All There in the Manual Covers Always Lie The X of Y Retcon Foil "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Despair Event Horizon Motor Mouth Jerk with a Heart of Gold Due to the Dead O.O.C. Is Serious Business Rated M for Manly Gainax Ending Worthy Opponent Animated Credits Opening Attempted Rape Amoral Attorney Laughing Mad Get Out! Back from the Dead The Ghost Ominous Latin Chanting Make It Look Like an Accident Kill 'em All Beware the Nice Ones Papa Wolf Funny Foreigner Agony of the Feet And I Must Scream Overprotective Dad Rape as Drama Heroes Want Redheads Tranquil Fury Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Berserk Button Shirtless Scene Morality Pet Expository Hairstyle Change The '80s It Will Never Catch On Hell Is That Noise And the Adventure Continues One-Word Title Not So Stoic Catch-Phrase Impaled with Extreme Prejudice Cowboy Cop Arch-Enemy Dark Reprise Rule of Symbolism It's All About Me Red Eyes, Take Warning Jerk Jock Unspoken Plan Guarantee Ambiguous Disorder Stuff Blowing Up Gone Horribly Right Only One Name The Stinger Catapult Nightmare Re-Cut Sir Swears-a-Lot No Celebrities Were Harmed Sports Stories Villain Song Antagonist Title Only Sane Man Friend to All Children Be Careful What You Wish For Fainting Wham Line Pyrrhic Victory Red Shirt Super Strength Meaningful Name Combat Pragmatist Anguished Declaration of Love Adapted Out Diabolus ex Machina Four-Temperament Ensemble A Date with Rosie Palms Anti-Hero Chekhov's Skill Psychological Thriller My Beloved Smother Villain Ball Villain Protagonist Extreme Doormat Shoot the Shaggy Dog "Shaggy Dog" Story Stalker with a Crush Big Bad Duumvirate Groin Attack Bullying a Dragon Expy Undying Loyalty Pragmatic Adaptation Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Manic Pixie Dream Girl Red Right Hand Police Brutality Canadian Movies The Casanova Canon Foreigner Faux Affably Evil Ass Shove Guns Akimbo Adaptation Expansion Ripped from the Headlines You Have Failed Me Karma Houdini Suddenly SHOUTING! Death by Irony Bilingual Bonus Abusive Parents A.I. Is a Crapshoot Epic Movie Death by Adaptation Never Found the Body Credits Gag timeperiod The Place Anyone Can Die Composite Character Brick Joke Never My Fault Gorn Market-Based Title Improbable Aiming Skills Beard of Evil Dutch Angle Kick the Son of a Bitch Serious Business Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Honor Before Reason Demoted to Extra No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Offscreen Teleportation The Dragon Animal Title Index Artistic License – Physics Fake Shemp Badass Normal Annoying Younger Sibling Pre-Mortem One-Liner Needs Wiki Magic Love Reality Is Unrealistic Death of a Child Twist Ending Australian Movies Insane Troll Logic Adults Are Useless Action Genre Dramatic Irony Television Movie Index Ironic Echo Bury Your Gays Horror Comedy Ship Tease As Himself Camp Gay Cloudcuckoolander Batman Gambit Spell My Name with an "S" Foreshadowing Not So Different Fanservice Extra Cool Guns Humans Are Bastards The Lancer Becoming the Mask Break the Haughty Dramatic Gun Cock Interrupted Suicide Deus ex Machina Fate Worse than Death Kick the Dog Failed a Spot Check The Remake No Name Given Action Girl The Oner Mundane Made Awesome Eiffel Tower Effect My God, What Have I Done? Not Quite Dead Advertised Extra Hollywood Darkness You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Biopic Guile Hero Armor-Piercing Question Face Death with Dignity Character Development Scenery Porn Homage Villain with Good Publicity One-Man Army Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Badass Boast Idiot Ball Protagonist Title Gold Digger Dual Wielding Fan Disservice Heel–Face Turn The Great Depression Bond Villain Stupidity Freeze-Frame Bonus Meet Cute Crazy Jealous Guy Cluster F-Bomb Shell-Shocked Veteran Chuck Cunningham Syndrome "Well Done, Son!" Guy Meaningful Background Event Big Damn Heroes Dumb Blonde Vomit Discretion Shot Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Based on a True Story Evil-Detecting Dog Awesome, but Impractical Our Vampires Are Different Hero of Another Story Vomit Indiscretion Shot Defiant to the End Psycho for Hire Exact Words Artistic License – Law Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Straight Gay You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Big Applesauce Would Hurt a Child Oh, Crap! The Reveal Evil Is Hammy Determinator aka: The Determinator Suspiciously Similar Substitute Sanity Slippage Genre Throwback As the Good Book Says... Public Domain Feature Films Captain Obvious Babies Ever After The Lost Lenore Trailers Always Spoil Film Noir Obstructive Bureaucrat Cassandra Truth Plucky Comic Relief Mood Whiplash Eyepatch of Power Those Wacky Nazis Brutal Honesty The '90s Fun with Acronyms The Film of the Book Badass Bookworm Frame-Up Horror Films Nice Guy Manipulative Bastard The Chessmaster Dramedy Breaking the Fourth Wall I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Historical Hero Upgrade Would Hit a Girl Conspicuous CG Ragtag Bunch of Misfits The Sociopath Early Installment Weirdness Insult Backfire Bring My Brown Pants Hero Antagonist In Name Only Ambiguously Gay Alas, Poor Villain Bavarian Fire Drill Final Girl Didn't Think This Through For Want of a Nail Have a Gay Old Time Neck Lift The Ace Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" The Dog Bites Back Kubrick Stare Mystery and Detective Films Actually Pretty Funny Married to the Job Rousing Speech Rule of Cool The Cavalry Depraved Bisexual Closed Circle Your Cheating Heart Same Language Dub Cat Fight The Musical From Nobody to Nightmare Hong Kong Films Fantasy Films German Films Moment Killer Spanner in the Works Chase Scene Deliberately Monochrome Sole Survivor Call-Back Word of God All Men Are Perverts Bond One-Liner Flipping the Bird Bound and Gagged Posthumous Character Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome Mistaken for Gay Imagine Spot Revenge Defrosting Ice Queen Knife Nut Disney Villain Death Artistic License – Military Politically Incorrect Villain Death by Sex Naked People Are Funny Fourth Date Marriage Shower Scene The Dreaded folderlabel Bloody Hilarious Evil Is Petty Mythology Gag Grey and Gray Morality The Smart Guy Blood Knight Broken Pedestal Extremely Short Timespan Deliberate Values Dissonance Adaptation Name Change Scary Black Man Redshirt Army Broken Bird Adaptation Dye-Job He Who Fights Monsters Aluminum Christmas Trees Epic Fail Woman in White Immune to Bullets I'm a Humanitarian Unusual Euphemism Actor Allusion Overly Long Gag Curse Cut Short Really Gets Around Mercy Kill Made of Iron Establishing Character Moment Obviously Evil Does Not Like Shoes Only Known by Their Nickname Suspiciously Specific Denial Laser-Guided Karma Victoria's Secret Compartment Soft Glass Spiritual Successor Paper-Thin Disguise Recycled IN SPACE! Crazy-Prepared Call-Forward The Brute Fatal Family Photo In Medias Res Book-Ends Disney Death Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Reality Has No Subtitles Wretched Hive Whole Plot Reference Took a Level in Jerkass Darkest Hour Bald of Evil Humiliation Conga Artistic License – Biology Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Big Eater Card-Carrying Villain Reasonable Authority Figure Eldritch Abomination Pet the Dog Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Male Gaze Scare Chord Stealth Pun Adorkable Screw This, I'm Outta Here! Only in It for the Money Bad "Bad Acting" Foregone Conclusion The End... Or Is It? Precision F-Strike Chiaroscuro Evil Brit Authority Equals Asskicking Big Fancy House Loads and Loads of Characters Red Herring Sacrificial Lion Dark and Troubled Past Setting Update Names to Run Away from Really Fast Daylight Horror Vitriolic Best Buds Dissonant Serenity Cold-Blooded Torture Refuge in Audacity Dark Action Girl Science Fiction Films Rich Bitch Not So Above It All Those Two Guys Room Full of Crazy Artistic License – History Token Minority Instant Death Bullet French Films Broken Aesop Action Survivor Rasputinian Death Male Frontal Nudity Dies Wide Open Dull Surprise Anachronic Order Yandere Tagline Developing Doomed Characters BFG Artistic License – Geography Once More, with Clarity! Important Haircut Narrator Mexican Standoff Small Name, Big Ego Star-Crossed Lovers I Did What I Had to Do Shown Their Work All There in the Script Zombie Stories Arranged Marriage The Load Taking the Bullet The Mafia Let's Get Dangerous! The Un-Reveal British Films This Is Gonna Suck "The Reason You Suck" Speech Cat Scare Soundtrack Dissonance Hooker with a Heart of Gold Ghost Fiction Romantic Comedy Well-Intentioned Extremist Mooks Chekhov's Gunman Aside Glance No-Sell Tempting Fate Film Noir Index 20 Minutes into the Future No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! The '60s Bunny-Ears Lawyer Those Two Bad Guys The Faceless Smoking Is Cool Only a Flesh Wound Funny Background Event An Arm and a Leg Children Are Innocent Japanese Films Shout-Out Intergenerational Friendship Index of Film Westerns Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Maybe Ever After Outrun the Fireball No Ending Rewatch Bonus Truth in Television Put on a Bus Peek-a-Boo Corpse Villain Opening Scene Historical In-Joke Italian Films Jerkass Happily Married Running Gag Chekhov's Gun Slap-Slap-Kiss Properly Paranoid Leitmotif Not What It Looks Like Say My Name Big Brother Instinct And Starring Domestic Abuse Ax-Crazy Visual Pun Unreliable Narrator Drill Sergeant Nasty Killed Mid-Sentence Kill It with Fire Leaning on the Fourth Wall Neck Snap Manly Tears Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Mad Scientist Russian Films Last-Name Basis Redemption Equals Death Bar Brawl Even Evil Has Standards Face–Heel Turn Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Large Ham He Knows Too Much Captain Ersatz Madness Mantra Vampire Fiction Very Loosely Based on a True Story Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other Corrupt Corporate Executive The Starscream Evil Sounds Deep Slasher Movie Almost Kiss Race Lift Half the Man He Used to Be Award-Bait Song Adaptational Heroism Dogged Nice Guy Dark Is Not Evil Random Events Plot Missing Mom Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Fingore Badass Longcoat Irony Stock Footage Creator Cameo The Stoner Bowdlerise Real Life Creepy Child Dirty Cop Fire-Forged Friends Hair-Trigger Temper Did Not Get the Girl Action Prologue Coming-of-Age Story Adaptational Attractiveness Fat Bastard Intrepid Reporter Deal with the Devil Smug Snake Badass in a Nice Suit Genre Savvy Gory Discretion Shot Amusing Injuries Loophole Abuse B-Movie Accidental Misnaming Slashed Throat Psychopathic Manchild Not Using the "Z" Word Cool Old Guy Ms. Fanservice Christmas Movies Index It Can Think True Companions Translation Convention Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality From Bad to Worse Age Lift Arc Words Casting Gag Throwing Your Sword Always Works Parental Incest May–December Romance For the Evulz Corpsing Your Head A-Splode Celebrity Paradox Slasher Smile Wham Shot Henpecked Husband Stepford Smiler Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Artistic License – Gun Safety Mighty Whitey Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Bait-and-Switch Our Zombies Are Different "Awesome McCool" Name Lighter and Softer