The Mole

The Headquarters on 24


"You were working for her, Seska was working for them -- was there anyone on that ship working for me?"
—Chakotay, Star Trek: Voyager

A bad guy who pretends to be a good guy. The audience assumes they are a good guy until the sudden revelation. If well-done, catches the audience out. If especially well-done, it can be the climax of a Wham! Episode.

There will frequently be a showdown with the Mole, who then may return to the series from time to time when the writers want to bump up ratings. Alternatively, if the Mole doesn't know he's been identified, the heroes can feed him false information. Their cover story usually involves a Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story.

A Mole who happens to be the only person the hero can turn to for expert assistance is the Treacherous Advisor. If the mole is a Sixth Ranger for a Five-Man Band or Power Trio, they're a Sixth Ranger Traitor.

If one of the heros had been in a romantic relationship with the Mole before The Reveal, he or she may ask "Was It All a Lie?". Particularly heartless Moles may reveal that yes, I Was Only Pretending to Like You, while others may have indeed developed feelings for the person being betrayed and may wind up Becoming the Mask.

A really successful example can even become the Mole in Charge.

Unholy Holy Sword is this trope applied to an artifact, weapon, or MacGuffin. Ten Little Murder Victims is an example of a plot concerning the hunt for The Mole. A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is The Mole via false identity. Flock of Wolves is a group where everyone is The Mole.

If The Mole is also a fake Heel Face Turn, they're a Heel Face Mole. If someone isn't The Mole, but it looks like he is, he's a Red Herring Mole.

Reverse Mole is the reverse, a good guy who's been pretending to be a bad guy. (See also The Infiltration for the short-term version.)

Compare Big Bad Friend (an actual friend who is nevertheless a villain), Turncoat and Les Collaborateurs. Contrast Friendly Enemy (a known villain who is nevertheless a friend) and Face Heel Turn (where the character was good, but changed sides).

Not to be confused with the Reality TV series of the same name, The Mole from Thunderbirds (which is a digging machine), the Dick Tracy villain, Mole Men, Mole Miner, 6.02 x 1023,[1] or the Mexican chocolate sauce.

Be alert that spoilers may follow, due to the secretive nature of this character.

Examples of The Mole include:

Anime and Manga

  • A particularly heartbreaking revelation of a mole occurs in episode 17 of Mai-Otome...
    • ...and likewise in episode 8 of Simoun.
  • Miyu, and later Alyssa from My-HiME. The former is a Robot Girl equipped and programmed to destroy CHILDs with one strike, and the latter is an Artificial Human and a "fake HiME" designed to find and subdue the real ones.
  • Sara in Soukou no Strain is always expected to be The Mole, especially when she swoops in to save the day in episode 4 and especially when her relationship to Ralph is revealed; no wonder she tried to cover it up with a new identity (but that just made it worse).
  • Technically, Light Yagami becomes a kind of mole in Death Note when L gets him onto the team and again when L dies, and the others get him to lead the detectives.
    • Misa is also frequently a mole, sometimes several layers deep.
  • In Corrector Yui, once Haruna joins the team, it isn't long before she starts using her mind-control voice (which only Yui, as a human, can resist) to make the others pick each other off. Haruna herself doesn't know it and then she turns out to be Brainwashed and Crazy (she's even turned into a Dark Magical Girl), but the guy controlling her actually made it subtle.
  • You Takami spies on Ganta in Deadman Wonderland in exchange for the over 90 million "cast points" (DW money) he saved up to buy his sister's freedom. Ironically, not only does Ganta figures out You's just using him and dosen't care but his sister really does deserve to be imprisoned.
  • Aizen from Bleach is an excellent example, although he's more of a Big Bad himself at the same time.
    • Gin is an even better example, as he is a mole twice over. He worked covertly for Aizen while both still posed as Gotei 13 captains, but near the end of the final fight against Aizen, he reveals that he had been working for Aizen all along simply for a chance at revenge against Aizen.
  • Kaji from Neon Genesis Evangelion is secretly investigating NERV's inner workings and secrets on behalf of SEELE and the UN. He's also the mole in SEELE, feeding information and the embryonic Adam to Gendo Ikari behind SEELE's back.
  • The biggest surprise of Trigun was Wolfwood's identity as a mole, but he manages to turn this into a Heel Face Turn through Vash's influence.
  • Sideways from Transformers Armada is something of a double mole. First, he's pretending to be a goodie, then 'reveals' that he's a baddie, spends some time messing with the other baddies' heads, then later reveals that he's a different sort of baddie.
  • In the Hellsing manga and (eventually) OVA Walter C. Dorneaz betrays the Hellsing organization. This could be argued as a Face Heel Turn but it is hinted as a long-plotted betrayal.
  • Subverted in Tantei Gakuen Q. Everyone thinks Tatsumi Hongou is the mole from Meiousei aka the Pluto Organization and that he arranged Morihiko Dan's kidnapping, but Tatsumi himself confronts the Q section people and calmly says he knows they don't trust him, that he's not the mole they're searchign for, and that they should team up and help him find said mole. It turns out that the mole is Shino Katagiri. Or better said, a Meiousei agent impersonating her, as the real Shino had been kidnapped before Morihiko Dan himself was. She's later found alive and rescued.
  • In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, one bad guy's identity was hidden until chapter 71, where it was revealed that Selim Bradley, the cute-in-the-anime son of the Fuhrer, was actually the biggest, meanest member of the Big Bad crew as Pride, the oldest homunculus. His adorable nature pre-reveal made it amazingly shocking, and his creepy nature since (especially upon being found out by Lt Hawkeye) is quite the change.
  • The Mole in Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful is one the cast sees coming, but it doesn't do them much good. At least, she does a Heel Face Turn when it counted.
  • Asakura Ryoko in Suzumiya Haruhi. Twice.
  • In Gravion, Mizuki Tachibana, a seemingly normal (except her breasts) Ms. Fanservice, turns out to be a spy for The Federation, feeding information of the titular mecha to create their own (since they distrusted the good guys despite having the same goal of protecting Earth). She is rewarded with a life of luxury, but quickly grew miserable and bored with it, prompting her to return to the good guys.
  • Deep Snow in Rave Master.
  • In Tenchi Muyo!: GXP, The Mole is Erma. A double reveal, in that the identity of the mole is given at the beginning of the episode, but the reason why is only at the climax. Ryoko Balta is a shape-shifter. Erma was, in fact, an identiy of hers. Since this is a Tenchi series, a Heel Face Turn and joining the harem happens quickly.
    • The higher ups already knew she was a Mole, but did nothing so they could secretly get information from her.
  • Innocent Venus. Jin. Turns out he hated his best buddy and former squadmate all along.
  • Runessa in StrikerS Sound Stage X of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. A Dragon Ascendant who had become a much trusted member of the Time-Space Administration Bureau.
  • In R.O.D the TV it is eventually revealed that Nenene's agent Lee Linho actually works for Dokusensha. This was a devastatingly effective deception, as he wasn't pretending to be a good guy; he was pretending to be completely uninvolved.
  • Being a series about ninja organizations, Naruto has several examples. medical ninja Kabuto is initially a mole in the Leaf Village for Orochimaru, and later a fake mole for the Akatsuki- pretending to inform to them on the Sound Village, but really remaining loyal to Orochimaru. Sai was initially a mole in Squad 7 for Danzo, but he switched loyalties almost as soon as he was found out. In one of the weirdest examples, Akatsuki leader Madara Uchiha is a mole within his own organization, as the Harmless Anti-Villain Tobi.
  • Soul Eater had a mole murder Buttatake Joe, and they made a bit of a whodunnit out of it. It's set up to make us think that Doctor Stein had done it, but the several Genre Savvy characters, decided to have him investigate. He finds Justin Law, the youngest and most innocent-looking of the death scythes, is actually working for an Ax Crazy human collector...and isn't that sane himself.
    • There's also Crona, whose actions under Medusa's orders were the cause of BJ being in Death City in the first place.
    • How far Justin was pretending to be a goodie is still up for debate. Though we know his background is more questionable than originally thought, one of the first claims about him was that he was highly resistant to the insanity wavelength in comparison to other humans. From what we've seen of madness in the cast, it wouldn't take much evidence to the contrary (recklessness, unnecessary violence, questionable motives/methods) for this clean bill of health to be thrown into question. Azusa might have found out he was tricking Shibusen all along, alternatively she might have discovered reason to doubt his resistance. The fact he was sent to deliberately seek and annoy the Kishin probably didn't help, as it was presumably done under the belief that Justin was less susceptible than most to being affected by Asura.
    • The ladies of the cabaret club also count. Both witches, both seen to be very chatty with Death Scythe when he comes into drink/flirt/mope. As a result, they found out plenty of information about his work which they passed on to Arachnaphobia, though nothing (yet) that seems to have been terribly significant. The fact they'd managed it, however, was probably bad enough.
  • Rob Lucci, Kaku, Kalifa and Blueno from One Piece. Yes, those are all from one story arc, and most are infiltrating one group.
    • Princess Vivi was a Mole in the criminal organization, trying to figure out who was planning to take over her country.
  • Syaoran from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is more of a Face Heel Turn than this, because of the radical personality shift. A more straight example would be Fai.
  • In Pokémon Special, it turns out that Sird was a mole sent by Team Galactic to infiltrate Team Rocket and learn more about space-themed Pokemon.
  • In Vinland Saga gunir is a mole although one of the characters states he doesn't trust him before gunir even has a chance to leak information, so its not a huge surprise when its revealed.
  • Meowth from the Pokemon Best Wishes anime pulls this off quite well. He pretends Team Rocket left him in order to let him steal their Pokemon. But when Pikachu finds this out, he goes ballistic.
  • Nao from Bloody Cross. He appears to be an ally and talks about how much he hates villains but it's all an act and he's actually a mole for Satsuki.

Comic Books

  • The comic series Fables has had several—Rodney Greenfield (who pretends to be a Mundy, not a Fable, and who the reader knows is a spy from the end of his first appearance), the ironically named Trusty John (he IS trusty--just to his original master, who has joined the Adversary), Red Riding Hood (actually two different shapeshifting witches--the second being Baba Yaga), Ichabod Crane, and Bluebeard--although the one that he is secretly helping is Goldilocks, not the Adversary.
  • Runaways had a particularly shocking Mole in its first arc.

Alex: "Aren't you proud?"

  • Iron Man's weakness for the ladies has led more than one of his enemies to employ a Femme Fatale Mole. In particular, Obadiah Stane used Indries Moomji this way with devastating effect. (She was the "Queen" among his chess-themed agents.)
  • In Y: The Last Man, Australian naval officer and spy Rose Copen forms a lesbian relationship with Dr Allison Mann so she can accompany her and thus keep tabs on the last man on Earth only to fall in love with Allison for real.
  • Part of the premise of DC's 1988 Crisis Crossover Millennium was that at least one character in every book was revealed to be secretly an agent of an evil alien robot cult. Since this was imposed from above on the hapless writers, the results were...variable.
    • 20 years later, Marvel pulled off nearly the same thing in Secret Invasion, rather more successfully. For one, there was much better coordination between writers and the editorial staff; for another, they didn't automatically mandate "one character per book", which kept the readers guessing.
  • In one week of Wild Life strips, Hanley had Soviet moles in his garden. We meet one of them up close.

Mole: [My name is] Avogadro. Here's my number.

  • Frank Wolff, Calculus's assistant in Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon.
  • Several are used in the Squadron Supreme limited series as part of a plot to stop the heroes' efforts to turn the planet into a police state.
  • In Golden Age Wonder Woman stories, U.S. Army Intelligence often seems to be the service from which CTU inherited its vetting procedures. Steve Trevor goes through a number of secretaries, almost all of whom turn out to be moles working for the bad guys. (Diana Prince didn't work for Trevor, but for his boss, Colonel Darnell. Though come to think of it, Diana herself was a mole, albeit for America's friendly ally, Paradise Island.)
  • The most important mole in comic book history is probably Terra of Teen Titans fame. The arc back in the Eighties was so famous it is still known as the "Judas Contract" arc. She is introduced when she apparently rescues the Titans and crushes Slade. It turns out she is a Complete Monster working for Slade (and in fact his girlfriend) much later when she leads the Titans into a deathtrap.
    • According to Knight & Squire by Paul Cornell, DC heroes now refer to this sort of thing as "a Judas contract".
  • Storm of X-Men Forever was revealed to be a spy for an evil shadow group.
  • Mondo from Generation X was revealed to be a traitor planted on the team to help destroy it from the inside. He reveals his teammates' weaknesses to his master, longtime X-Men foe Black Tom Cassidy.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: A recent retcon and a bit of Arc Welding have made it so that Geoffrey St. John's recent apparent Face Heel Turn is actually this, stating that he's actually been working for Ixis Naugus since before either of them were even introduced.

Fanfic

  • Loyalty is a unique case that features a mole as it's main protagonist. But Sakura is anything but willing.
  • In Kira Is Justice, Shadow is one in the SIS, while Mr. Williams is partially an unwilling one in the Task Force (though this hadn't been put in play-yet.)

Film

  • In the movie adaptation of Mission: Impossible, the team leader Jim Phelps, essentially reversing his portrayal for the entire run of the original series, which the movie producers weren't even involved in.
  • Austin Powers: "MOLEY-MOLEY-MOLEY!!!" Actually a Reverse Mole, except that he actually has a mole. (See also: Color Coded for Your Convenience)
  • The Departed is the story of a mole in the Massachusetts State Police and a Reverse Mole in the Boston Mafia trying to discover each other.
  • Braveheart played with this trope and its variants; when two characters join Wallace's crew, one appears to be the mole but it turns out to be the other one and the first one saves the hero.
  • There are two in Carlito's Way. One is revealed right away and is working for the FBI, the other is not revealed until the ending.
  • Heavy Metal 2000: Odin reveals himself as The Mole during the climactic battle, just after the Big Bad has been killed by the heroine.
  • One of the people in Ronin is not actually "Ronin", and is still working for his/her agency. It's Sam.
  • The Avengers 1998: Father.
  • In G-Force Speckles, the Mission Control Star-nosed Mole comes back from an unfortunate garbage truck incident to reveal himself as the one who's actually turning household appliances into killing machines.
  • Dog Soldiers had a mole, who didn't INTEND to be the mole originally. The one woman who rescued the soldiers from the Werewolves and tries to help them escape from the surrounded country house is revealed to be a member of the Werewolf family herself. Apparently, it seemed she thought the soldiers knew about the beasts and had come to rescue her (and perhaps cure her) from the Werewolves. However after every escape plan goes wrong, she reveals herself to be one of them, reveals that she had let the rest of the wolves in the house while they were busy and begins changing into one of them herself.
    • She is promptly shot in the head seconds later.
  • No Way Out features a remarkable combination of a mole and a Red Herring Mole. The murder of the Defense Secretary's mistress is blamed on a Soviet mole as a Red Herring to divert attention from the real killer (the Secretary himself). The protagonist (Kevin Costner) must race to find evidence of this before they figure out that he's the one being framed. The twist is that although he didn't kill the girl, Costner really is a mole.
  • Stalag 17 involves one of these in a German POW camp during WW 2. It turns out to be someone other than who everyone assumes it to be.
  • Although the cast spends a large part of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen thinking that Skinner is The Mole, it turns out to actually be Dorian Gray.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Dr. Elsa Schneider is revealed to be working with the Nazis about halfway through the film. She pretended to help Indy in order to obtain Henry Sr.'s grail diary, which could confirm the location of the Grail's resting place. Elsa, however, subverts her role when she purposefully gives Donovan the wrong grail, which eliminates him from the picture, allowing Indy to obtain the true grail and heal his father. In the end, this (questionable) redemption is not enough, as she tries to leave with the grail from the temple. In a Take My Hand moment, she can't keep herself from reaching for the grail below her as she hangs on to Indy above a deep abyss. She ultimately loses her life when her gloved hand slips away and she falls to her death.
  • Reservoir Dogs. After a heist goes wrong, the main characters become paranoid, with Mr Pink repeatedly claiming there has to be a mole. We eventually discover it was Mr Orange.
  • Anna in The Guns of Navarone.
  • Tex in Robot Jox.
  • Dr. No. Miss Taro is an agent of Dr. No who works as a secretary in Government House, passing classified information on to him.
  • The movie Salt is filled with moles.
  • Becky in Sin City ends up ratting the Old Town girls out to the mob.
  • The Rocky and Bullwinkle film parodies this trope's name. The villans have a mole in the U.S. government that allows them to get information about what the government is doing. The mole is revealed to be a literal mole that is part of the President's Staff.


Literature

  • John le Carre's novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the TV series adapted from it, focus around the hunt for a very high-up mole in the British Secret Service. It didn't invent the term "mole", but is largely responsible for popularising it in modern fiction.
    • Many of Le Carre's novels involve moles in one way or another, and the main character of A Perfect Spy is a mole.
      • In fact most Stale Beer flavour Spy Fiction features moles and mole hunts as central plot points. The Cambridge Five and Aldrich Ames left pretty deep impressions on the genre.
  • In Dan Abnett's Brothers of the Snake, the Space Marine Khiron killed another and claimed that he was warp-tainted, but there was no evidence. Another Marine, Priad, talked to him to learn what he could and discovered the daemon had possessed another Marine, who was trying to get Khiton killed.
  • In William King's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel Ragnor's Claw, Gul.
  • In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines novel Nightbringer, de Valtos, who appears to be Divided We Fall, and Chanda, who appears to be faithful. Then, when Chanda hands over the governor and the inquisitor, he is Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves.
    • In Dead Sky Black Sun, Obax Zagayo. Honsou scorns him not for the treachery but for thinking he could conceal it.
  • Matthew Reilly has used this a couple of times:
    • Ice Station: Snake, Montanna and Sarah Hensliegh are members of the Intelligence Convergence Group, dedicated to covering up scientific breakthroughs by making sure only they know about it by killing anyone else who does.
    • Temple: Nash, Lauren and Troy are only pretending to be DARPA, so they can steal the idol for the army's use.
      • Uli "Craterface" Becker is a German agent pretending to be a Nazi.
      • Martin Race is a DARPA employee secretly helping the army.
      • Troy is also working for a terrorist group.
    • Area 7: Botha and Echo Unit are both trying to steal the perfect vaccine.
  • In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40,000 novel Hammer of Daemons, Alaric feeds some information to an eldar gladiator. After he leads a Gladiator Revolt, Alaric prevents the eldar from getting on the ship: his captor had learned the information, and it being false, he could only have learned it from the eldar. Whereupon Alaric accuses him of having betrayed the previous Gladiator Revolt—which had been crushed, and games had been held to celebrate that victory, and those games had killed Alaric's friend and fellow Grey Knight. He kills the eldar.
  • The Harry Potter books continually go back and forth on which one of these Snape actually is. The main characters have thought that he was every single one of the Mole examples listed above at one point or another, regardless of what he actually is. He is a triple agent, appearing as a double-agent to both sides, but actually on the side of the Order all along, motivated by his love for the late Lily Potter.
    • Also, Peter was the Mole in the Marauders. He was spying for Voldemort and was the one who gave up James and Lily Potter's location. And then he framed Sirius for it, to boot.
    • Draco was somewhat of a mole when it was his assignment to be a spy for the Death Eaters inside Hogwarts, and to make it possible for them to break in by altering a Vanishing Cabinet. The Hogwarts administration was fairly aware of this, but Dumbledore denied the severity of it, attesting that Draco was just an innocent boy and not capable of the hardcore evil being a full Death Eater required. Though Dumbledore was wrong about Draco's abilities as a mole, he was right that Draco was not as evil as he wanted to be - and the fact that Voldemort was unsympathetic toward Draco's innocence led the Malfoys away from the Death Eaters, and caused Narcissa to save Harry's life when she realized it would allow her to lead Draco to safety.
      • He wasn't altering the Cabinet. Nearly Headless Nick got Peeves to drop it on Filch, breaking it, so Draco had to fix it.
      • Since when was Draco a spy? He was more like an assasin, considering that his job was to kill Dumbledore.
  • Despite his Heel Face Turn halfway through the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia, this is still what Edmund Pevensie is most remembered for. Well, that, and Evil Tastes Good.
  • TONS in Fablehaven. Starts out with Vanessa, and then the Sphinx, and then Gavin. So much for the Official Couple.
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Blood Pact, Gaunt deduces very early that they can trust no one because of the way the raid was carried out. In the end, the Mole is identified as Inquisitor Rime. Also, Xomat turns out to be the inside man for Csoni's planned assault on Urbano's parlour.
  • In The Silmarillion, Maeglin is the lord of the house of the Mole. Because he's "great among quarrymen and a chief of the delvers after ore." And, possibly, because he betrays the location of the hidden city of Gondolin to Morgoth.
  • Wellington Yueh in Dune, betrayer of House Atreides.
  • Dain in the first Deltora Quest series was a pretty darn good Mole. He's a Grade 3 Ol, who's known for perfect transformation, and disguised himself as the (fake) heir with a good cover story and infiltrated the La Résistance's organisation as a spy. He managed to fool everyone else even when the Seven Tribes renewed the vow and the Belt seemly pointed him as the heir, when it actually points to Lief.
  • Silena Beauregard in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. And Redemption Equals Death. Badly.
  • In Peter F. Hamilton's Pandoras Star / Judas Unchained novels, the human protagonists come to realize that their society's government is riddled with Brainwashed Moles controlled by the alien Starflyer.
  • Recurring trope in Dale Brown books. In Flight of the Old Dog one of these allows for the critical damaging of a space station, gives away two stealth bombers en route to the plot-critical Soviet Superscience Wave Motion Gun and forces the eponymous Airstrike Impossible to get going while You Can Barely Stand... and the whack-a-mole subplot is effectively nonexistent. Day of the Cheetah is centred on one of these getting his hands on a Super Prototype Cool Plane. Act of War has National Security Adviser Chamberlain turn out to be the one giving information away to the terrorists.
  • In Shanna Swendson's Once Upon Stilettos, they discover someone was at Owen's desk and hunt for the spy. It may even be an operation to get them all Divided We Fall.
  • Police inspector Javert of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables attempts this, passing himself off as a revolutionary so he can slip information back to the authorities.
  • In Robert E. Howard's The Hour of the Dragon, Conan the Barbarian tells Zenobia to walk with him so he can kill her if she proves to be this.
    • In "Rogues in the House," Murilo was selling secrets to foreign powers. How evil that makes him would rather depend on how evil those countries were.
  • In Orson Scott Card's Empire series, Dee Nee proves to the party responsible for leaking information to the terrorists.
  • In Blood of the Mantis, Lyrus.
  • Gertrud Becker in The Chalet School in Exile, aka Gertrude Beck, a Nazi spy sent to infiltrate the Chalet School and gather information. However, she finds out very little after the older girls realize there's something odd about the questions she asks and warn other girls to keep quiet, and she ends up having a Heel Face Turn after running away and being rescued by some French sailors.
  • In the Time Scout series The Syndicate is very good at insinuating their agents.
    • They have downtimer terrorists working construction on the new Arabian Nights gate, perfectly placed to start riots and murder their enemies.
    • They put Career Killers on baggage crews to hunt down and murder people running from those same Career Killers.
    • They get a Smug Snake Career Killer head of evil security placed on the search and rescue mission going after those same people.
  • The Black Ajah consists of a number of moles operating in the other seven Ajah in the White Tower in the Wheel of Time series.
  • In Bad Monkeys, Jane Charlotte is revealed in the last 5 pages of the book to be a mole in an unnamed organization devoted to fighting evil. This revelation makes her account of how she got in the organization that she tells to her psychiatrist (and thus the entire book) only half true.
  • Linda Lane in Septimus Heap. Without her spying on the Heaps and gaining their trust, Jenna would have never been discovered.
  • Medea Lindenshield from The Icemark Chronicles is a good example of this trope. She is the youngest daughter of the main protagonist Queen Thirrin and her husband, the powerful warlock Oskan, whose Magical abilities she has inherited. So when it's discovered that she has hated her youngest brother for years and has tried to have him killed throughout the entire course of the book, it's painful.


Live Action TV

  • The TV-program The Mole is the Reality Show version of this trope. The contestants engage in various challenges, and the better they do, the more money goes in the winning pot; at the end, the winner gets the pot, and the Mole gets the rest of the prize fund as a measure of how well they screwed things up. The contestants are also periodically quizzed about the Mole's identity and actions, with the poorest scorer eliminated.
    • Played with: as a Metagame strategy, non-Mole contestants also screw up on purpose, to fool others into thinking they're the Mole and thus do poorly on the quizzes. Sure, it decreases the winner's take, but it increases your chance of being the winner.
  • 24 is probably the most famous example of this. Over the course of eight seasons, there have been fifteen named and confirmed moles, not counting the hundreds of unnamed ones in Day 7. This figure also doesn't include double and triple moles.
    • Amazingly, even by the eighth season, the characters are still astounded when a mole within CTU is uncovered.
    • This has prompted many fans to suggest that Jack Bauer needs to have a long talk with CTU's director of Human Resources.
    • Not just CTU itself, every agency in the series is plagued by numerous moles.
  • Morgana was The Mole for most of Merlin season 3, and now Agravaine has taken over the role,working for Morgana
  • Alias has done this.
  • Lost: Seconds after Flight 815 crashed, Ben dispatched minions to infiltrate the survivors. They later turn out to be Ethan in the main group and Goodwin in the Tailies. In season two, Michael is forced to act as a mole. In season three, an elaborate ruse is utilized to let Juliet infiltrate the survivors, but she turns pretty quickly.
  • Partially subverted in the 2000s Battlestar Galactica; from the beginning of the first season the audience is aware that Boomer is a Cylon, although the crew of the ship, and Boomer herself, are not. The season arc features her struggling with self-doubt over whether or not she's human, attempting suicide, and ultimately learning that she is in fact a Cylon. In the season finale, she seemingly sides against her kind and sets off a nuke destroying a Base Star full of other copies of her, and at that moment the Wham hits; as Commander Adama is meeting her in CIC and praising her for a job well done, she draws her sidearm and shoots him twice, point blank, in the chest.
    • The reveal of several other characters in the season three finale includes two significant moles, as well as two lower tier individuals.
      • Not really moles though -- their presence in the fleet turns out to be more like a punishment -- or a joke.
  • Used to good effect in Neverwhere, where the Big Bad's Dragons inform the heroes that there is a traitor among them. The viewers are led to believe that it will turn out to be the Marquis de Carabas, and it is made clear that the heroes believe this as well, but it's really the bodyguard, Hunter.
  • In the season 3 finale of Numb3rs, FBI agent Colby Granger was revealed to be a spy for the Chinese. But in the premiere of season 4, it was shown that he was a double agent the whole time.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "The Runaway Bride", Lance - the fiance of the eponymous bride - is revealed to be working for the sinister Queen of the Racnoss. And in "The Last of the Time Lords", a scientist employed by Martha turns her over to The Master. In a minor subversion in the latter example, however, Martha's actually counting on her doing so as part of her plan.
    • In "The Masque Of Mandragora", Sarah Jane is hypnotized into doing this.
    • The character of Vislor Turlough is initially introduced as a mole character who orchestrates his way into becoming one of the Fifth Doctor's companions under orders from the Black Guardian to kill him, but eventually does a Heel Face Turn and defies the Guardian and goes on to become a loyal companion for the rest of his time on the show.
  • Yolanda/Saffron/Bridget of Firefly made a living out of being The Mole.
  • Spoofed on Arrested Development, when Tobias is asked to be a mole for the CIA; he think it's a casting agency, and assumes they want him to put on a mole costume.
    • Also played straight with Annyong.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine uses this with Michael Eddington. Originally a by-the-book secondary character who is more loyal to Starfleet than the rest of the cast, Eddington is eventually revealed to be a Mole for the rebellious Maquis.
    • And then there's the time Doctor Bashir was revealed to have been a Changeling impostor for the last several episodes.
  • In Star Trek: Voyager, Seska was a Cardassian deep-cover agent disguised as a Bajoran and Tuvok was a Federation agent (but that's made known pretty early on), both infiltrating the Maquis on Chakotay's ship (much to his chagrin). When Seska defects to the Kazon-Nistrim, a minor Maquis crewman (Michael Jonas) is her collaborator who remains on board Voyager (though the Kazon do their damnedest to play the middleman).
  • Star Trek: Enterprise. Archer's steward Daniels turns out to be a time agent from the 31st century. Damsel in Distress Rajiin is a portable X-Ray machine for the Xindi Reptilians. Malcolm Reed works for an early incarnation of Section 31, while reporter Gannet turns out to be working for Starfleet Intelligence and Ensign Masaro for radical Earth group Terra Prime.
    • Reed, at least, wasn't all too happy about betraying his commanding officer, and when push came to shove, he stood by Archer. He is one of the few characters of whom this can be said.
  • A couple of examples turn up in Babylon 5:
    • At the end of the first season, Garibaldi uncovers a plot to assassinate the president of the Earth Alliance. Before he can deliver a warning, he is shot in the back by his aide Jack.
    • In "Divided Loyalties", Lyta Alexander delivers a warning that someone on the station has a deep-cover personality implanted by Psi Corps. It turns out to be Talia Winters.
  • Undersheriff McKeen in CSI, revealed in the final episode of season 8 in spectacular fashion.
  • The early episodes of Dollhouse set up that there's a spy somewhere in the House, eventually revealing it to be head of security Dominic. Notable in how the character was practically the only one fans hadn't suggested The Mole to be...because it was such an obvious choice, everyone assumed that it ruled them out. Oh, Joss Whedon, you insane genius. In the final episodes it is revealed that in fact Boyd, a trusted figure in Adelle's house, was the one in charge of Rossum Corporation.
  • Supernatural: Ruby turned out to be The Mole who really wanted Sam to kill Lilith, thereby releasing Lucifer from his prison.
  • Jen K in Greek is a mole for the school newspaper, and puts a dent in the entire Greek system with her article. Apropos that Jen K is played by Jessica Rose of Lonelygirl15 fame (see below).
  • Very Special Agent Lee on NCIS is coerced into being a mole and learns, naturally, that Redemption Equals Death.
  • In Glee, Quinn, Santana and Brittany, the three Cheerios who join glee club, are secretly spying for Cheerios coach Sue Sylvester, who is trying to bring down the club. As the series goes on, though, and Quinn's popularity and membership in the Cheerios are destroyed by her pregnancy, this gradually changes.
  • After appearing as a contestant on the first series of The Adventure Game, Lesley Judd then appeared as The Mole on later series, culminating in a puzzle where the other contestants had to avoid finishing on the same square as her, otherwise they would be eliminated.
  • In Bones, Zack Addy is one for the Gormagon. He comes back occasionally, though, because he's a freakin' genius and nobody else can figure out the killer.
  • In Intelligence, half the cast is, at any given time, a mole for one or more members of the rest of the cast.
  • In Ashes to Ashes, it is revealed near the end of season 2 that Chris has been blackmailed into being a mole. He is however not a bad guy, so he redeems himself promptly with a Face Heel Turn.
  • The Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Bleak Island". West's old friend Sir Nigel Scott turns out to be the Big Bad.
  • MacGyver: In "The Enemy Within", Mac must discover the identity of a mole within the DXS who has caused the death of four agents.
  • A series 2 subplot in the 2006 BBC adaption of Robin Hood features Allan a Dale working as an informant for Guy of Gisborne, resulting in his exile from Robin's gang and the end of all his friendships when his treachery is unmasked. He is technically a good guy, so he also occasionally acts as a Reverse Mole, though this is much more rare until the season finale, in which he deliberately contradicts Guy's orders in a semi-suicidal bid to save the gang's lives and rejoins the band.
  • During Season 2 of The Wire, the investigation into the Greek's syndicate is sabotaged at several points along the way by leaks from an FBI agent on his payroll.
    • Agent Fitzhugh's apology to Daniels suggests that the leaking agent isn't corrupt, but another product of the FBI emphasizing counter terrorism over everything else. The Greek is protected from investigation by the FBI in exchange for counter terrorism intel.
  • Damon starts out as a mole in the founder's council on The Vampire Diaries. But soon he becomes an actual member and turns out to be the most useful.
  • Babylon 5
    • Garibaldi partly involuntarily.
    • Talia Winters


Newspaper Comics

Mole 1: Gentlemen, we are meeting here because some crocs are trying to eat us. How they got word we were staying at this hotel, I don't know.
Mole 2: Perhaps we have a mole.


Professional Wrestling

  • Used and subverted in CHIKARA. One of the tecnicos (Faces) had betrayed the others and taught rudo (Heel) Ultramantis Black the counter to Mike Quackenbush's feared submission finisher the Chikara Special. Ultramantis also hypnotized tecnico Tim Donst into joining his stable the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple. Except, Donst was faking the amnesia, and while one of the rudos he discovered that the traitor of the tecnicos was Shane Storm. Donst told Quackenbush, who attacked Storm before he could pull off a full fledged reveal and betrayal.
  • Many believe Hulk Hogan is currently this in TNA.

Radio

  • Adventures in Odyssey: The audience was let in fairly early on the fact that Mr. Glossman was a mole, but not on who he was working for.

Tabletop Games

  • Paranoia takes this to an extreme; every single character in the game is a traitor working for a different secret society.


Video Games

  • Super Robot Wars: Original Generation has a variation on this. He's really in with the good guys, but he's mentally programmed by the bad guys so that he can't do anything that directly goes against them. So he made a female clone of himself that doesn't have the programming before he activated.
    • The sequel does this with a twist. The Shadow Mirrors sends Lamia Loveless a robot created by the Mad Scientist Lemon Browning, to act as a mole to spy on Kyosuke Nanbu. The player knows she's a mole right off the bat, and the drama is that Lamia is becoming self aware, and wonders if what she is doing is right.
  • In StarCraft Brood War, Samir Duran helps the Terran forces at the early missions of the campaign. Halfway through the game, he manipulates the Terran Commander Gerard Dugalle that his childhood friend, Vice-Admiral Alexei Stukov was a traitor to the United Earth Directorate. Dugalle then gives Duran the mission to kill Stukov, after which Duran reveals himself as the real traitor and works with Sarah Kerrigan.
    • Then the trope is fulfilled again when Duran betrays Kerrigan at a critical hour, later revealing himself as "a servant of a far greater power" which will likely figure prominently in the sequel.
      • And now has.
  • In Neverwinter Nights, Desther Indelayne served under Lord Nasher Alagondar when Neverwinter was infested by the Wailing Death. He has the complete trust of the elven cleric Fenthick Moss and was rather suspicious of the player character's motives. After the 4 Waterdhavian reagents are recovered and a cure was created, Desther and his false Helmite priests steal the cure, revealing that they are serving the cult of the Old Ones who were behind the Wailing Death.
  • Reeve, aka Cait Sith in Final Fantasy VII, though he's in the middle of a Heel Face Turn when it's revealed.
  • Sanchez, of Suikoden, turns out to be a traitor. He pledges allegiance immediately when discovered, and, despite his hand in some horrific events from Odessa's death to sabotaging the Resistance's raid on the Empire's most important fortress, the hero doesn't execute him on the spot. He does spend the rest of his life in a prison though. Really, you should have known: he has a face portrait and hangs around you, but is not one of the 108 warriors.
    • You have the option to execute him... and this is the only point in the game where you can choose to execute someone without locking you out of the best ending.
  • Albert Wesker from Resident Evil. Since being outed and subsequently "killed off", he returned as a superhuman, Badass villain.
  • Grim Grimoire has two. Margarita for the Archmage Calvaros, and Bartido for another nation.
  • The Sega Genesis game Shining Force 2 had a blind, injured boy named Oddler who the party takes around with them for part of the game, and later turns out to be a greater devil named Odd Eye. Interestingly, he is a redeemable evil, as he sacrifices himself to pave the way to the Final Boss after the party defeats him in battle.
  • The major subplot of the first Crusader game was that there was evidently a mole at the Resistance base. The character—and, in some cases, the player--didn't find out it was Major Vargas until one of the last missions of the game, at which point the damage had been done.
  • Metal Gear Solid has too many to count. Ocelot deserves a mention here though, seeing he betrays someone in every single game.
    • EVA from MGS3, who was actually a spy for the Chinese. Due to Big Boss' amazing pheromones, she is eventually converted to his side and is extremely loyal, but that's later.
      • As it turns out, it wasn't the Big Boss' pheromones that converted EVA, but the Boss'.
    • In Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Paz and Kaz are revealed to be spies for Cipher, with the former presumed killed in the final battle against ZEKE.
  • Mega Man X4's Double initially introduces himself to X during the Maverick Hunters' conflict with their sister organization Repliforce as a rookie Maverick Hunter. He is small, clumsy and chubby, and seems pretty harmless. He presents X the 8 Repliforce bosses and acts every bit X's ally, even pleading with him to not go fight Repliforce's Colonel. However, once X has taken care of them and heads to their space station Final Weapon, Double receives a transmission from Sigma to stop the Hunters from reaching Final weapon at all costs, right in the middle of being teased by some of the Reploids in X's unit who were gearing up to follow X into space. He then proceeds to transform into his TRUE form... An ass kicking demonic looking bot with laser blades on the back of his hands. Turns out he is actually semi-made of liquid metal a-la T-1000, and able to change between his real form and a smaller innocent looking one. He then proceeds to slaughter every single one of the Hunters in the Hangar in probably the most graphic scene ever put in a Mega Man game.He then goes to Final Weapon himself, and intercepts X in his small form, bursting out laughing, claiming both the Hunters and Repliforce as idiots. He transforms, much to X's shock, as he had trusted his new ally, and attacks him. After he is defeated, he reveals had been sent as a spy from the very beginning to keep an eye on X.
  • Winback: Covert Operations: Your squad leader, who happens to be the brother of the Big Bad that was offed by The Dragon turned traitor himself. Before the penultimate battle, he reveals that he sabotaged the helicopter, causing it to explode and faking his death (No One Could Survive That), and that he killed the two teammates you found Stuffed Into the Fridge.
  • Jansen Friedh of Lost Odyssey starts off the game as The Mole, but is very bad at it, probably as a result of just not caring that much about his employer's instructions. Not suprisingly, he quickly discovers that he likes Kaim and Seth a lot more than he likes his boss.
  • Baten Kaitos is an interesting case in that the mole is the main character, and you don't know until the second disc. He goes on to become The Dragon for a while until his defeat at the hands of his former friends, and then performs a genuine Heel Face Turn.
  • In The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, several of the random citizens in Cyrodiil are actually Mythic Dawn cultists. Usually, you won't discover this until your actions make the Mythic Dawn faction sufficiently mad at you that they start to attack you on sight, although you may find this out ahead of time - say, if you burgle their house and find a set of cultist robes, or if they get attacked by something and blow their cover by summoning their trademark armor.
    • In The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, The Nord leader of Vvardenfell's Fighter's Guild is revealed to be a Mole for the Cammona Tong, the Evil Counterpart to the regular Thieve's Guild that wants them dead. You can either help the Nord eradicate the Thieves' Guild, or help the second-in-command of the Fighter's Guild expose and kill him.
    • There's more than that, however. One Mages Guild quest requires you to root out a potential Telvanni spy; It's the Archmages personal assistant. A House Hlaalu quest has you delivering new orders to their spy watching their rivals House Redoran, the upper-class tailor in Ald'ruhn, the Redoran capital. Though one doesn't formally come up in the Thieves Guild questline, you can find a few Thieves Guild members deep undercover at the Camonna Tong HQ, the Dren Plantation.
  • Romancing SaGa Red Mage, who really is Spite; one of the Minions of Saruin; but if you saw Red Mages' clothes, the golden buckles on his front and the red coat with blueish-green hue on it is a dead give away since that quest is late in the game and you may have already fought Strife and Scorn who have a similar design other than Spite who took a human form
  • Leon Magnus in Tales of Destiny is technically a mole, but since he was officially put in the group to keep an eye on them, it's not a secret to anyone.
  • In Mission: Impossible for the N64 and PS 1, Ethan is framed for being Max's mole in the CIA halfway through the game, then later it is revealed that the real mole is Phelps, as in the movie.
  • In Arcanum the Mole is immediately (and unnecessarily) lampshaded by The Lancer as soon as he offers to join. If you gather the right information to convince the leader of the entire organization to do a Heel Face Turn, then he confesses and asks to remain in your party, otherwise he invites you to an ambush ("There's something I must tell you, but you must come alone! Otherwise the information will be Lost Forever!")
  • Reiko from Oneechanbara 2. She's an agent of an organization that joins Aya in her attempt to rescue her half-sister, Saki. Turns out said organization is evil, and she tagged along so that when Aya defeated the villain that had kidnapped Saki, Reiko could eat her heart and gain Baneful Blood powers. However, since this game only came out in Japan and the PAL territories, most US players only know this from the summary of the previous games included in the guides and manuals for the US-released Oneechanbara games.
  • In Team Fortress 2, this is the point of the Spy. You disguise as a member of the enemy team, infiltrate headquarters, act like an ally... and then stab your "teammates" in the back as soon as you get the chance.
  • Wing Commander has several of them:
    1. Zachary "Jazz" Colson, in Wing Commander II
    2. From the manual for Wing Commander Privateer, the story of a station destroyed by Retros involves one, named Furstenburg, that shut down the station's defenses at a critical moment, allowing the Retros to attack unimpeded.
    3. Ralgha "Hobbes" nar Hhallas, in Wing Commander III
  • Scias from Breath of Fire 4. Though to be fair, he never was supposed to be on their side in the first place - apparently the party sort of forgot that he was the guard assigned to keep an eye on them.
    • Fortunately, Scias takes his orders literally. He was told to keep an eye on them, not to stop them from leaving the castle. He points this out to his employer, who, annoyed, has to agree that Scias fulfilled his contract. At which point Scias gives the money back when he has a case of Becoming the Mask.
  • Ever 17 has 'Takeshi' which is revealed in the final route. Minor subversion in that it was being done as part of a plan orchestrated by the good guys who simply couldn't tell anyone what was going on.
  • ARMA 2: CDF officer Nikola Nikitin. His treachery gets Razor Team captured. And after Miles trusts Nikitin enough to get them into this mess, Lopotev shoots Miles.
  • Wolfenstein has this happen twice! The first is expected the second isn't.
  • In Anachronox, the first person who joins your party, Grumpos is The Mole and has the symbol of the Dark Servents under his beard but it is not revealed until the final cutscene when he activates The Fountain Spiral to free the Dark Servents. The player generally suspects nothing, the only foreshadowing is when he refuses to go to Limbus, a planet which has experience with the Dark Servents and so would recognise him, but since he plays it as being afraid because of the place's reputation, it's not telling.
  • In Lunar: The Silver Star, Nash eventually turns out to be a traitor who was working for Ghaleon, helping him spy on your every move. And depending on the version you played, Nash either turns out to be a double mole, or has a Sex Face Turn after the actions of another party member, Mia.
  • Jenkins is this in Red Faction: Guerrilla. He's a variation of this though, in that he's not really with the EDF, but is simply batshit insane.
    • In the first game, Hendrix is one of these for the player and the titular Red Faction. He works as Ultor's security technician, but secretly helps the Faction by providing them with information and hacking into Ultor's security systems.
  • In Alpha Prime there is Coral Snake. Your first hint of them being the Mole is while watching a report from the villain requesting permission to terminate them because he no longer trusts them, and he later warns you not to trust them. The latter half of the game deals with the main characters accusing each other, finally leading the hero to wonder if the villain made up Coral Snake to turn the heroes against each other. He didn't. Coral Snake turns out to be Livia, who was working for the villain's superiors the whole time. Though she probably didn't have nice plans for the villain either.
  • Ace Attorney villains are really good at being moles, especially Matt Engarde who you'd think would be incapable of simply brushing his teeth without his manager, much less kill someone. Other examples include Calisto Yew aka Shih-na in the fifth game, and Kristoph Gavin who is the player's freaking boss in the fourth game.
    • The Detective Mole. Both of them. Byrne Faraday and Tyrell Badd worked together on the Yatagararasu case--and also were the Yatagarasu, together with Yew. And Luke Atmey, who claimed to be hunting Gentleman Thief Masque*Demasque while he was secretly the one funding and manipulating him. Starting to see a bit of a pattern here...
  • In Baldur's Gate II there is Yoshimo. He is forced to spy on you due to a curse Irenicus put on him. Interestingly enough if you kick him out of the party before you visit Spellhold and then visit him when you're done he'll die as soon as you come near him.
  • In World of Warcraft, the Cataclysm expansion reveals that formerly relatively minor NPC Archbishop Benedictus is, and always has been, a fanatical member of the Twilight's Hammer cult that has been spying on Stormwind.
  • Deus Ex, being a pastiche of conspiracy theories, has a large number of moles, starting with the mole paramilitary group UNATCO, working for MJ12 and tycoon Bob Page working for himself. On a more personal level there's Harley Filben, working for the NSF UNATCO the NSFthe Illuminati and Morgan Everett's mechanic, who places A BOMB!
  • In the Mass Effect 2 DLC, Lair of the Shadow Broker there's Tela Vasir, an Asari spectre who acts as the mole to the Shadow Broker. Ironically she provides a boss fight that is arguably even tougher than the fight with the Broker himself
    • And in Mass Effect 3, Udina becomes this.
  • In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the evidence seems to point La Volpe towards Machiavelli being the mole, but it really is some one-eyed thief briefly glimpsed in the first Sequence.
  • In Alpha Protocol, Mina is a mole for the NSA, tasked with looking into the Alpha Protocol operation and bringing it down.
    • Oh, there's so much more than that: Parker is Halbech's mole within Alpha Protocol, Omen Deng is a Deep-Cover Agent for Taiwan, Surkov is Halbech's real arms supplier in Russia, Scarlet is the assassin sent to kill President Sung, and it's heavily implied that Steven Heck was the one who set up the assassination plot in the first place. Plus there's all the traitors within the organizations you fight who are willing to sell you intel on their friends.
  • In Strife it's revealed about mid-way through the game that Macil has a piece of the Sigil. He must be dealt with to finish the game but when you do so determines which ending you receive.
  • A few examples occur in Vanguard Bandits. The game is clear that some are moles from the start, so the main question becomes who are they working for or when are they going to betray you. Or are they gonna betray you?
  • Metroid: Other M: The Deleter aka James Pierce
  • In Renegade Ops, Natasha, the scientist you've been charged with protecting for the first seven missions, turns out to be working for the same faction as Inferno. Furthermore, she's actually Inferno's superior, sent down by her organization to watch over him after one screw-up too many.
  • The plot of the Sam and Max Freelance Police episode "The Mole, The Mob and the Meatball" was for Sam and Max to find a mole who infiltrated Ted E. Bear's Mafia Free Playland and Casino. Turns out the mole was an actual mole and he switched sides as the new Don.
  • Dusknoir in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers. There's also Snover in Sky.
  • In Diablo III, Adria turns out to be the high priestess of Diablo, with whom she conceived Leah for the sole purpose of being Diablo's vessel to be reborn as the Prime Evil.


Webcomics

  • In Sluggy Freelance, Riff is revealed to have been acting as a mole for Hereti Corp since before the series began, albeit unintentionally.
    • And in the "Phoenix Rising" storyline "Nash Straw" turns out not to be an investigative reporter, but an assassin the Canadian Mafia hired to kill Oasis.
    • And Riff's girlfriend Monica is actually a K'Z'K worshipper sent to spy on the main characters by Chilus.
  • Ever since Sadako entered the YU+ME: dream storyline, readers were not sure exactly who she was or what her relation to Lia was. When the big Drama Bomb hits, it becomes more apparent who Sadako is.
  • Wooster, Gil's loyal companion in Girl Genius, turns out to be a mole from Britain. Unfortunately for him, the one he was spying on knows. That's why he made sure to keep him close, so he can keep an eye on him.
    • A more dangerous Mole was Rovainen, when it turns out that he is a revenant.
  • Irregular Webcomic, here. Although in this case, it doesn't actually apply to this comic.
    • Also, Dr. Ginny Smith.
  • In Mortifer, William Aussek, the newly appointed leader of the local supernatural law enforcement, is revealed to be Magnificent Bastard Joey Von Krause in disguise. A more straight example would be Matthew, who is revealed Post Time Skip to be informing on Joey to Vlad Hynner -- Matthew's pissed at Joey for more or less relegating him to desk work, preventing him from venting his Psycho for Hire tendencies. Also, it's revealed that Alyce was working for Vlad the whole time as a double agent.
  • Drive: Orla O'Malley is part of La Familia. Nobody in-universe knows this but La Familia.
  • Jesse in Fans was revealed to be the mole; his real name is Jesspin, and he is loyal to the time-traveling conquer General Maximilianna. Subverted in that Jesse still exists as a secondary personality within Jesspin and is loyal to AEGIS. When Jesspin told "Jesse" that no one would believe that he wasn't a traitor, "Jesse" answered, "That's what will make this fun. I do my best work in the dark."


Web Original

  • Dr. Hart in Lonelygirl15, who is one of the protagonists for a significant proportion of series 2, before eventually revealing himself to be a villain (but he switches sides during the season finale, "Bloodlines").
    • A particularly unusual example happened during the live event seen in "Too Dangerous!", in which a group of fans were invited to meet Daniel and Jonas, in person, in San Francisco, and take part in the storyline. Greg Gallows, a popular Big Name Fan of the series, was revealed to be a mole, passing information onto villain Lucy. Gallows went on to appear as an enemy Mook in the following story, "Bloodlines".
    • Sarah was revealed to be a mole in "We're Screwed!"
    • Lonelygirl15 loves this trope, actually. Gemma, anyone?
    • Carl Adams in "Prom: It's To Die For".
  • Kate Modern season 2 featured two examples of this; first Terry and later Julia.
  • The LG 15 The Resistance finale revealed that Sarah Genatiempo was in the Order all along. Some fans considered this a Crowning Moment of Awesome, others a mistake of gargantuan proportions.
  • There's a variation in Survival of the Fittest version 2, where Big Four member Steven Wilson is tasked with scouting Bathurst High School (the other Four were assigned to other schools in the city) to find the best classes to target, and eventually to orchestrate those classes' abductions. They got him in place by forging documents and credentials to establish him as a qualified teacher and administrator, arranged for the previous Bathurst principal to "disappear", and then snuck him in as the new one. He then took over by using his previous military and leadership experience to take care of the administrative details. Ironically, the Bathurst students sealed their own fates by treating him rudely and with no respect, constantly causing trouble, and the two chosen classes were the ones he saw as the worst. Nobody not in the know saw it coming.
    • Jodene Zalack in Survival of the Fittest version three, who joined a group with the intent of infiltrating them and taking them out. She succeeded in killing Khrysta Lawrence and escaping entirely unharmed. She was planning to do the same to another group before it was decimated by Wade Wilson.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series' Melvin (Yami Marik) was a villain from the get go, but it's taken even further when he turns out to be The Mole for the series itself. He was hired by the CEO of 4Kids (Noah Kaiba) to cancel the show. He succeeded.
  • The Yogscast Minecraft Series has Lysander, who turns out to be a member of the evil cult of Israphel. And he burned down Mistral City while the heroes were investigating what happened to Old_Peculier's father.
    • Subverted when it turns out Lysander was framed and the person who actually burned down Mistral was a pirate named Jock Fireblast. Played straight though when Skylord_Vitali betrays the Skylords and kills them all.


Western Animation

  • Terra in Teen Titans, which is an adaptation of a famous story arc from the comic's 1980s heyday, "The Judas Contract."
    • Also in Teen Titans, Bumblebee is a mole for the Titans in Blood's school, although Cyborg doesn't know it and tries to fight her for real.
  • A major plot point in Young Justice is that apparently a member of the team is a traitor. Artemis seems to the most obvious candidate, though her debut episode and an issue of the tie-in comic make it seem like this is a red herring.
    • A recent episode had the team leader, two supervisors, a member, and an outside friend sit down and discuss the possibilities. According to them, Artemis has suspect connections, Conner has suspect origins, and M'gann has a suspect story, while Wally, Robin, and Kaldur are 'above suspicion.' Make of that what you will.
      • In the end The mole was nobody on the team. Wally Robin and Kaldur were above suspicion after all, while Artemis, Superboy and Megann were all blackmailed, but opted to come clean about their secrets rather than betray the team. Red Arrow was the mole (and he was unknowing brainwashed one), and he was to be the mole for the Justice League (having worked his way into their ranks by the end of the season) and not the Young Justice team. Implying they had a mole in their team was just sow dissent.
  • So the Drama, the (first) Grand Finale to Kim Possible, has a rather obvious mole, who nonetheless fools everyone.
  • Shockwave from Transformers Animated. The Autobots know him as Longarm Prime, head of Autobot Intelligence.
    • Sideways in Transformers Armada. After switching between the Autobots and Decepticons several times, he is revealed to be an agent of Unicron, making both sides fight each other to fuel him with their hatred.
    • And Sideways in Transformers Cybertron, not to be confused with the Sideways mentioned above, is a mole in the Decepticons working to...actually, it's never quite clear why he's there.
      • He wants the Cyber Planet Keys for himself, so as to annihilate Gigantion and avenge his homeworld Planet X, which was destroyed by one of its own weapons in a war with Gigantion. He eventually settled for being with the Decepticons, because he felt their aggression would serve him better. He sided with Starscream eventually, betting on the madbot Determinator who had the bearings to attack all the Autobots at once to get what he was after. Eventually Sideways bailed on the 'Cons entirely after almost getting vaporized by Optimus Prime, and thereafter worked solely with his fellow survivor Soundwave.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars has featured two such characters. The first was R3-S6, a pseudo-Suspiciously Similar Substitute for R2-D2 who briefly replaced the famous droid after he was captured, and tried to mask his attempts to kill Anakin and co. as accidents. The second and more surprising of the two was Captain Argyus, head of the Senate Commandos; the wow-factor in this case came from the fact that, as an elite bodyguard in the employ of the Galactic Senate, most would expect him to be as loyal as they come.
    • There was another example, Clone Trooper Slick sold out the planet Cristophis in the episode "The Hidden Enemy". What make it more surprising than Captain Argyus is that it was a clone. Men who you would not think would do that. Or be capable of such a thing due to their training/programming.
  • In Justice League, it turns out that Hawkgirl has been The Mole the entire time.
  • Danny suspects new love interest Gregor is The Mole for the Guys in White because of his white clothes and his coincidental arrival at the same time as those guys. He's not. Unfortunately, the reveal was too easy to point out. Though I didn't suspect he was a Fauxreigner!
  • As shown on the characters page, Owen from Total Drama Action was one for Chris, although he was rather reluctant, and had a legitimate reason for doing so.
  • The first episode of Archer was tentatively entitled "Mole Hunt," where Archer starts a rumor about there being a mole in ISIS, causing everyone to, well, hunt for The Mole.
  • Jonny Quest TOS.
    • "The Quetong Missile Mystery". Lieutenant Singh of the Quetong Police.
    • "Skull and Double Crossbones". Jose the cook.
    • "Treasure of the Temple". The Indian guide Montoya.
    • "The Curse of Anubis". Dr. Ahmed Kareem.
  • 1973/74 Superfriends episodes:
    • Poly Lean in "The Fantastic Frerps"
    • The fake Sir Cedric Cedric in "The Power Pirate"
  • G.I. Joe: Renegades has a couple of benevolent examples. Lady Jaye subverts Flint's efforts to catch the Joes, and Breaker had an inside man in Cobra for awhile.
  • Huntik Secrets and Seekers has one and it's Zhalia Moon.
  • Parodied on The Simpsons.

Fat Tony: Now some unpleasant news. I have learned that someone in this room is a squealer.
Legs: We've narrowed it down to either Johnny Tightlips or Frankie the Squealer.
Frankie: Okay, it's me! I can't help it! I just like squealing! It makes me feel big!


Real Life

  • FBI Agent Robert Hanssen, one of the most damaging moles American counter-intelligence has ever had. Sold information to the USSR that resulted in the deaths of many agents and defectors over a two decade period. At one point, Hanssen was actually tasked in his counter-intelligence work to find the Soviet mole. He was looking for himself!
  • Several of the Cambridge Five in the UK could be classed as this, but the most infamous would probably be Kim Philby who, as a long-term spy for the Soviet Union within MI 6, at one point became head of Section IX: tasked with counter-espionage against the USSR.
  • Aldrich Hazen Ames, one of the most notorious double agents in CIA history. Received approximately $4.6 million from the Soviets for selling out several CIA sources and operations to them from the 80s until his capture in 1994. His actions as a Soviet mole were so shocking and poignant that they even made a movie about him, Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within, and he's been referenced in several espionange stories since his discovery. Also infamous for beating the regular CIA lie detector tests by being very calm.
    • Polygraphs are not lie detectors. They pick up on physical signatures that indicate someone may be lying and are notoriously unreliable.
  • Mark Zborowski, yet another Soviet mole. He wormed his way into Trotsky's circle and possibly assisted in the death of Trotsky's son.
  • Anna Chapman, the gorgeous hot chick, turned out to be a spy for the Russians. Along with nine other nameless guys, by the way, whom the media didn't care, really.
  • Really, any real life Reverse Mole is someone's The Mole.
  1. ↑ a unit of measure known in chemistry as a "mole"
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