What would be the opposite of a strawman?

That is, when somone sets out to defend some position --- a religion, or a party, to take concrete examples, but just about anything I suppose --- and does that by essentially implying (or even outright stating) either a lite version of the actual position, or maybe a (partially or completely) fabricated version of the actual position, something that they can defend, more easily defend than they could the original position. And, much like the strawman, I suppose this can either be done deliberately, or it could be done inadvertently.

So, is there actually a name for this, a strawman you put up not to tear down but to defend? (Or is it a simply a category of strawman?)

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/KflkHg1