Call a Pegasus a Hippogriff: Difference between revisions
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So your characters are on an adventure in a [[Magical Land]], and they naturally run into a mythical creature. Said creature is then identified in the text or dialogue by the name of a similar (or not) mythical being or fantasy creature. Cue a moment of confusion for the viewer.
Could be employed just to underline in red crayon that [[Our Monsters Are Different|Your Monsters Are Different]]. Alternatively, of course, the writer [[Did Not Do the Research]] -- ''or'' did [[Viewers Are Geniuses|a little too much research]], finding an extremely obscure name or form of a familiar creature. This is a common cheat when fishing for names for [[Palette Swap]] [[Underground Monkey
This isn't quite [[Sadly Mythtaken]] as the very fact that the writer ''knows'' that mythical creatures have specific names implies doing some research. (Sadly Mythtaken is more for [[The Theme Park Version]] / Disneyfication of classic myths.)
In case you're wondering, the most commonly accepted generic term for [[Winged Horse
Compare [[Istanbul (Not Constantinople)]], which is similar but for place names.
When a completely fantastical character is named after a commonly-known creature, see [[Call a Smeerp a Rabbit]], which is a sister trope. The title is a takeoff on [[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp]], and is a reference to one of the best-known examples.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' there's an in-story example when the group encounters a monstrous dog creature with multiple heads. Nodoka, being the high-fantasy book fan, identifies it as Orthrus by its snake-head tails. But at the same time, it has three heads total like Cerberus (whereas Orthrus had two), so she can't really identify it as anything. {{spoiler|This probably serves as a [[Chekhov's Gun]] because the person who conjured it (it was actually an illusion) was just a child with likely not much knowledge on mystical consistency}}. Note that in some myths, Cerberus is depicted with a snake tail or with snakes on his back.
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* In [[E. Nesbit]]'s ''The Book Of Beasts'', the hero must summon a creature identified as a hippogriff to save his city from a dragon. The creature that appears is what most people would identify as a pegasus, a winged horse. To be fair, you can't say that a hippogriff ''isn't'' a winged horse (or that a pegasus isn't technically [[Mix-and-Match Critters|part horse, part bird]] for that matter). It's also possible that Nesbit figured that the word pegasus must only refer to ''[[A Kind of One|the]]'' Pegasus; this was ages before [[My Little Pony]] remember.
** Actually Pliny the Elder mentioned Pegasi living in Aegypt. So the idea of numbers of Winged Horses existing is [[Older Than Print]].
* An older example is Frank Stockton's short story, ''The Griffin and the Minor Canon'' from 1885, in which the eponymous
** Actually, it's more accurately a [[Our Dragons Are Different|wyvern or wyrm]] , as it has only two legs:
{{quote|It had a large head, with enormous open mouth and savage teeth; from its back arose great wings, armed with sharp hooks and prongs; it had stout legs in front, with projecting claws; but there were no legs behind,--the body running out into a long and powerful tail, finished off at the end with a barbed point. This tail was coiled up under him, the end sticking up just back of his wings.
** Sir [[wikipedia:Arthur Charles Fox-Davies|Arthur Charles Fox-Davies]] warns against confusing the two in his ''A Complete Guide to Heraldry'', so it was apparently a common Victorian mistake.
* One of the stranger examples is in the book ''Thorn Ogres of Hagwood''. A character wanders into the action about halfway through the story. He is a short humanoid with a big, big beard and he carries a lot of different tools and has a great talent for metalwork. He is [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|identified as a dwa...]] no, wait, he is a Pooka. [[Trickster Mentor|Pookas]] technically can [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|appear as dwarves]] but, as you may recall from ''[[Harvey]]'', they also tend to be a lot weirder.
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* Although she never appears in the stories in person, it's made pretty clear that [[H.P. Lovecraft|H.P. Lovecraft's]] Mother Hydra has nothing to do with the Hydra of the Greek myth.
* In David Weber's ''[[Safehold]]'' books, the humans who have settled on the planet Safehold have named many local animals after mythical beasts. Examples include the kraken (described as a cross between a squid and a shark, fitting the latter's place in Safeholdian ecology), the [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragon]] (a massive, six-legged animal that comes in both carnivorous and herbivorous varieties), and the wyvern (''four''-winged flyers that are the Safeholdian analogue of birds).
* [[Hell's Gate|Arcana]] has "[[Unicorn
* There are carnivorous "Alicorns" (also called "One-Horns", but guess what unicorn means) in the ''Elvenbane'' series as well. Traditionally, this word refers to either [[Winged Unicorn|winged unicorns]] or the horn of a unicorn, although it's likely a result of centuries of [[Recursive Translation]] from English <-> French (unicorn -> ''une icorne'' -> ''l'icorne'' -> a licorn -> alicorn).
** Some of the main characters are shapeshifting superintelligent dragons who are, in some details, [[Our Dragons Are Different|quite different]].
* In ''[[The Carpet People]]'', there's an enigmatic, prescient race which most people would call "[[Our Elves Are Better|elves]]" based on the description. Instead they're "[[Our Wights Are Different|wights]]", which more commonly refers to minions of [[The Undead]]. (At least in the modern era, thanks to ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' -- "wight" is an archaic word meaning "a person of a specified kind, especially one regarded as unfortunate".
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Get a drink for this one. In ''[[Dungeons
** Ditto for ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]] III''.
** Incidentally, the word "Gorgon" literally means "horror".
** The use of the name "gorgon" for a bull-like creature comes from a particular medieval bestiary, which used that name for the catoblepas as a reference to the whole "kill with a glance" thing.
* Lamia in ''[[Dungeons
* At least one article in ''Dragon'' magazine has suggested that game masters use this trope in-game to screw with their players' expectations, perhaps justifying it as disinformation spread by [[Genre Savvy]] monsters.
* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' calls vampires' mortal servants "ghouls".
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* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has [http://mspaintadventures.wikia.com/wiki/Lich liches] that could be much more comparable to gargoyles (though the wings are not part of the monster design; they come from the prototyped crow).
** While we're at it, the trolls are are a race of [[Cute Monster Girl|Cute Monster People]] whose infant forms are reminiscent of [[Bizarre Alien Biology|insects]] and whose life cycle and physiology is [[Expospeak Gag|just a tad]] [[Art Major Biology|strange]]. While not a full example - [[All Trolls Are Different|myths about trolls rarely agree on anything]] - the ''Homestuck'' depiction was intended to be rooted more in the idea of [[Troll|internet trolls]] (that's all the characters were before [[Andrew Hussie]] decided to make them relevant to the plot), and as such are certainly divorced from the traditional brutish, man-eating monsters that live under bridges.
* Brooke from ''[[Eerie Cuties]]'' and her people are called "melusines," even though traditionally, "Melusine" was a specific individual - what she was was a "nixie." It would be like calling gorgons "medusas." [[Oh, Wait!]], [[Dungeons
== Web Original ==
* [[SCP Foundation]] has an in-universe example with SCP-953, [[Yokai| a kumino.]] Personnel are advised to ''never'' refer to her as a kitsune, because she ''really'' gets angry at humans who call her such. Should anyone ask what the difference is, protocol says to explain that a Navajo would likely be offended if mistaken for a Cherokee, and that this is similar. Indeed, mistaking a kumiho for a kitsune would likely be the last mistake a human would make, as a kitsune is ''far'' more likely to be friendly to humans than [[Exclusively Evil| the sadistic and homicidal kumino.]]
== Western Animation ==
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* Sirens are often portrayed as being mermaid-like in appearance, even though they were originally closer to harpies in the myths.
** Not to mention languages that conflate the two names.
* The chimera is often portrayed as being similar in body structure to cerberus, with the goat head, lion head (which is often depicted as a male lion's head in modern media as opposed to the original female lion's head where the beast was generally considered in Greek mythology to be a female), and a dragon head all together in the front http://anwoanimalworld.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/new-chimera-dragontoy-miniature-has-3-heads/. In original Greek mythology the chimera had the body and front head of a lioness, a snake for a tail (which is still present in modern depictions), and a goat's head on its BACK at the center of the spine https://web.archive.org/web/20120104021705/http://cs.fit.edu/~ryan/chimera.html
** To confuse matters even more, the term "chimera" is often used as a generic term to refer to ''any'' [[Mix-and-Match Critters]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Name's Not the Same]]
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