| abstract | - The Tourist is a monster. After intercepting The Courier and stealing The Package, he's liquidated or turned every agent, assassin, and hitman sent to retrieve it or kill him. Every spy agency this side of the Atlantic are scouring their records, trying to discover who he is, what he knows and who he works for. But one question burns brightest: "What does he want?" To find that nice local bakery that makes the chocolate croissants. Somehow the protagonist has been Mistaken For Badass, through no merit of his own other than some well timed ducking, a little obliviousness, and a lot of incredible coincidences. He's a bumbling, perfectly normal Nice Guy that has gotten mixed up in a very real, serious, and deadly affair. Maybe he muddled his way through some Spy Speak and convinced the CIA he's the MI6 operative they sent, or somehow knocked out or killed a highly lethal assassin before they made a hit, or otherwise had the MacGuffin fall on his lap. Or he's the only survivor of that nasty mess-up he was caught in, due to inhuman level of luck, maybe not even realizing just how deadly all this was. Everyone believes the Innocent Bystander has no chance, so not only did The Tourist know what was going on, but he had also proven himself as the most competent of all the dangerous people involved. It helps a lot that there are several sides who will never sit together and add up everything they know about the case, but will watch each other just enough to overhear their rivals' suspicions and assume that the other side "knows something". This guy manages to not just survive the attentions of those interested, but do so in a way that convinces the bad guys he's actually a Badass Normal who is Made of Iron. If someone insist he "drop the act", he'll confusedly answer he doesn't know what they're talking about, he's just Joe Average and wants them to quit trying to kill him. Of course, they conclude he's using a deep cover Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass act. Which all things considered is not that far from the truth. This character can be mistaken for a paragon of any profession that requires a lot of training and competence, not just spies but also martial artists, cops, thieves, or what not. In the most extreme instances of this trope, the protagonist doesn't even notice what he's doing. He may kill every assassin dispatched against him with casual obliviousness, disassemble the evil plot with trivial ease, and otherwise destroy the bad guy's evil empire without ever becoming the wiser. Sometimes, they do clue in to what's going on about half way through, but still manage to pull through. This can be done completely straight in an action movie or drama, with the character panicking once he realizes just what he's gotten into. On the flip side, this can be amazingly funny in a comedy by using both slapstick methods of beating or killing opponents, and making fun of all these "professional" organizations out to get our hero. Clueless Detective may be overestimated the same way.See also Mistaken for Spies, Inspector Oblivious and And You Thought It Was a Game. Compare Seemingly-Profound Fool. Examples of Mistaken for Badass include:
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