Puppetmaster

There was once a most wondrous Puppetmaster whose creations were so realistic that most people failed to notice the strings. The Puppetmaster staged marvelous and elaborate puppet shows, and the people flocked to see them. Indeed, it was the only show in town.

Of course, there was a price to pay for the puppet shows, and it was not merely the price of admission. Once the audience was inside the theater, the Puppetmaster's Marionettes would go through the crowd and pick them clean of anything of value. Most of the people didn't even know they had been robbed, but a certain subset did know, and some of them complained.

"Hey, that puppet picked my pocket!" someone might object.

Or "that puppet pocketed my watch!"

And so on.

Over time, the people began to resent the pillaging of the Marionettes. Some defended them on the grounds that robbery of the audience was the proper way for show business to function, but the general opinion was anti-Marionette.

"Bad Marionettes!" chided the people. "They must be punished for robbing us!"

Indeed, many Marionettes were punished. They were replaced by other Marionettes, who also picked their audiences clean.

No one blamed the Puppetmaster.