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{{trope}}
A secondary character of some importance in the world at large has disappeared or been rendered incapable of performing his usual duties: they've been kidnapped, or have run away, or they might have even died. Someone else (usually one of the program's leads) finds themself dragooned into service; they must impersonate the missing person during some critical event or meeting... or for much longer.
While sometimes the
Eventually the missing person (if they aren't deceased) is recovered, but often only after they learn [[An Aesop]] about some aspect of the world which was hidden from them in their usual role.
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However, the fact that this plot comes from the classic novel, ''The Prisoner of Zenda'', makes it at least [[Older Than Radio]].
Usually—but not always—involves an [[Identical Stranger]]. See also [[Body Double]] and [[Mock Millionaire]].
{{examples}}
==
* In ''[[El-Hazard: The Magnificent World]]'', Makoto Mizuhara is forced to impersonate the missing Princess Fatora until she is rescued. He pulls this off [[Bishonen|with surprising ease]] despite the fact that he sounds nothing like her and portrays her as shy, giggling thing when she's actually a loud, abrasive tomboy.
* In episode 12 of ''[[Mai-Otome]]'', Mashiro runs away rather than meet a foreign prince, and Arika is forced to impersonate her. However, in a double invocation of the trope, the prince is himself an impostor, the bodyguard of the true prince who himself is missing. Naturally, Mashiro and Prince Takumi meet, [[King Incognito|neither knowing who the other is]]. (Pleasantly enough, this is ''not'' played for laughs, despite the strong tendency of anime using this trope to do so. What ''is'' played for laughs is Nina claiming to be Arika just for the hell of it—and to further perpetrate the joke, Mashiro introduces herself as Nina, completing the circle.)
* Inverted in episode 102 of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', where Usagi is kidnapped and Minako must pretend to be Sailor Moon. Everyone else is fooled, but Usagi is less than impressed.
* Subverted in the anime ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]''. Form teacher Rebecca Miyamoto disappeared just as the PTA are about to sit in during her class and her loyal students all but press gang Serizawa Akane to be her replacement or as Akane herself thinks, a "kagemusha". The subversion is that
* Utilized in the manga ''[[Princess Prince]]'', where [[Half-Identical Twins]] trade places after one gets pregnant. The twist is that not only is the "replacement Princess" a boy, but his "fiancee" is well aware of this.
* In ''[[Death Note]]'', this is played with - all the relevant major characters know about the deception, and it's all in all a pretty twisted case of the trope.
** Specifically, Light takes on the guise of
* This is the entire plot of the manga ''[[Magical X Miracle]]''.
* In ''[[Tentai Senshi Sunred]]'', Sunred receives the outfit of Sakyun, a fellow toku hero, back from the laundromat. He decides to beat up Florsheim, the local villain group, for the hell of it. It's only when ink is sprayed on the suit that Sunred realizes he has to return it to its rightful owner. This is the closest Sunred ever gets to acting like an actual toku hero.
* In the ''[[Detective Conan]] vs [[Lupin III]]'' [[Crossover]] TV special, Ran turns out to be a near ringer for the princess of a small European country. {{spoiler|She ends up involuntarily impersonating the girl for a while, to help draw out a murderer.}}
* In ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'', Elsea has to fill in for the idol Kanon
* In the ''[[Akiba's Trip]]'' finale {{spoiler|Mayo is incapacitated and the ([[Lampshade Hanging|called by name]]) [[Deus Ex Machina]] needed to save the day requires a group of three amateur idols, one of which is Mayo}}. Good thing {{spoiler|Mayo's [[Evil Twin]] sister got [[Easy Amnesia]] and bigger problems caused her to be forgotten about in front of a steam of the idol group's videos}} so she not only can impersonate her well enough to fool the people of Akihabara, actually thinks she ''is'' her sister.
==
* Happens accidentally to Shakira in an issue of ''[[The Warlord]]''. Shakira discovers she is a [[Identical Stranger|dead ringer for a kidnapped princess]]. She takes the princess's place, leading the kidnappers to believe the princess has escaped.
* ''[[Jon Sable Freelance]]'' #49 is an [[Homage]]/[[Whole-Plot Reference]] to ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'' with Jon standing in for a kidnapped European monarch.
==
* The plot of the movie ''[[Dave]]'', where the title character takes the place of the President of the United States after the latter unexpectedly suffers a stroke while having sex with an intern. Dave has to fool not only the country but the late president's ''wife,'' for [[Rom Com]] reasons. At the end,
* The cult favorite ''[[Bubba Ho-Tep]]'' relies on the premise that in the early '70s, Elvis Presley traded places with an Elvis impersonator; the impersonator died in 1977, and the real Elvis lived to a ripe old age in a retirement home.
* Premise of the 1988 movie ''[[Moon Over Parador]].'' An actor who has just finished filming a movie on location in the fictional Latin American [[Banana Republic]] of Parador gets coerced into pretending to be that country's dictator (whom he resembles and was already good at impersonating) when the latter unexpectedly dies.
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* Happens in ''[[Hair (film)|Hair]]'': George Berger impersonates Claude Hooper Bukowski to extract Claude from the base for a last meeting with Sheila, taking his place, but while Claude is away, {{spoiler|the unit flies out to Vietnam, taking Berger with them. [[Tear Jerker|The film ends with the main cast singing at Berger's grave.]] Damn you, Milos Forman!}}
== [[Literature]]
* This trope is central to the story of ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'', where Rudolph Rassendyl has to impersonate his royal cousin who has been kidnapped the day before his coronation.
** The story is parodied in ''[[Flashman|Royal Flash]]''.
** And reused in the [[Robert A. Heinlein]] novel ''[[Double Star]]'', also known as [[The Prisoner of Zenda]]...''[[In Space]]!''
* The [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
* ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'': In the only Conan novel written by the character's original creator, ''The Hour of the Dragon'', Conan is incapacitated on the eve of battle by a wizard's servant. In order to keep his army from being demoralized and consequently losing his kingdom, he has one of his most promising commanders don his armor and lead his men in his place—only for the commander to have a cliff face dropped on him, making the world at large believe that King Conan is dead. The rest of the novel revolves around Conan trying to win back his throne and overthrow his usurper.
* In the book ''[[Myth Adventures|Hit or Myth]]'', Skeeve has to disguise himself as King Roderick for a day so the king can take a vacation. Then the king does a bunk, leaving Skeeve to carry on the charade... which includes marrying the king's fiancée
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: In ''[[The Iliad]]'', when Achilles refuses to fight, his friend (and possible lover) Patroclus dons his armor and fights the Trojans and their many allies in his stead. Until he's killed, then Achilles is mega-pissed. However, Achilles is the protagonist while Patroclus is a side character.
* There's a rather strange, but sad, example on ''[[Catch-22]]''
* In Mary Stewart's ''[[The Ivy Tree]]'', a young woman just come to town is recruited to impersonate the long-missing heir of a local estate, so as to convince the missing woman's grandfather to change his will. {{spoiler|Subverted in that it's eventually revealed she ''is'' the heir, going along with the scheme for her own reasons. The deception is particularly startling because the whole book is [[The All-Concealing "I"|in her first-person perspective]].}}
* In [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''Worlds of the Imperium'', the protagonist is dragooned by agents from the Imperium's [[Alternate History]] to replace a dictator (the version of himself from a third [[Alternate History]]).
* In ''[[The Lies of Locke Lamora]]'', the titular thief is hired by {{spoiler|The Gray King}} to impersonate him at a meeting with the local crime lord. He assures Locke that no harm will come to him. {{spoiler|It does.}}
* ''The Mad King'' by [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] is very similar to ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'' except that at the end
* Near the end of ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'', the heroic army is [[Storming the Castle]] of the villains, but Prince Josua and Sir Camaris unexpectedly end up sneaking in via the tunnels—in Camaris' case because he is [[Clingy MacGuffin|compelled by the]] Great Sword he is carrying and Josua because he wants to try to persuade Camaris to return (and another, more personal reason). This leaves the army without its two main leaders, so the remaining ones quickly grab two lookalikes, dress them appropriately, and send them off to lead instead.
* In the second ''[[Codex Alera]]'' novel Max winds up having to impersonate the First Lord using [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|watercrafting]] after he collapses from exhaustion so the First Lord's enemies won't realize he's incapacitated.
==
* Probably one of the weirdest versions of this trope is in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Host", which is the introductory episode of the Trill. The Trill ambassador is killed in an attack, but his symbiote is still alive. However, no other Trill is able to make it before it dies, so Commander Riker has the symbiote implanted in him. Thus, Riker is forced to carry out the ambassador's mission, which is a slight problem when the factions that requested the ambassador see him.
* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' does this ''three times''. The first is when Kinch impersonates an African prince, the second when Crittendon impersonates an English traitor, and the third in reverse where the heroes help a German defector, who looks exactly like Schultz, escape by dressing him up in Schultz' uniform.
* Played slightly straighter, only with time travel in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''{{'}}s "[[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|Past Tense]]", where Sisko's presence in the past caused the premature death of an important historical figure a few days before he was supposed to die heroically, then has to impersonate him.
** In a later season, a character was studying Earth's history, and when he encountered an entry about the historical figure, passed comment about how closely Sisko resembled a picture of him (the picture, of course, being that of Sisko).
** Sisko also, at one point,
*** Subverted though when at the end of the episode {{spoiler|Mirror Jennifer asks what happened to her real husband revealing she knew all along who he was.}}
* The ''[[Get Smart]]'' episode "The King Lives?".
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* Done a few times on ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', where Xena has at least two [[Identical Stranger]]s who she either impersonates or impersonate her.
* In two episodes of ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'', Iolaus is required to step in for his lookalike cousin, Prince (later King) Orestes.
* In an ''[[Airwolf]]'' episode, the pilot was recruited to fly a plane during an air show while the look-alike Soviet pilot was debriefed by the Firm to see if he actually wanted to defect. Unfortunately the Soviets got wind of it, brought his wife to threaten him, and the pilot and the wife
* An episode of ''[[The Jamie Kennedy Experiment]]'' had the mark told he bore a striking resemblance to a foreign prince who was too hung over to appear at a press conference, and was asked to take his place.
==
* ''[[Prickly City]]'': Senator Kevin refuses to go see his constituents. So Winslow goes in disguise.
==
* The play ''[[Lend Me a Tenor]]'' features a stage manager's assistant stepping in for a famous opera star who has supposedly committed suicide just before a performance.
* In [[A. A. Milne]]'s play ''The Ugly Duckling'', the prince and princess who are supposed to marry are both so plain that they have better-looking servants stand in for them at the betrothal. (At the actual wedding they plan to be wearing full armor and a face-obscuring veil, respectively.)
* In ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'', a servant, Tranio, switches clothes with and fills in for his master, Lucentio, as part of a classic [[Zany Scheme]]. Later, he pushes the scheme further by getting another character to impersonate Lucentio's father.
==
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', Celes is asked to stand in for opera singer Maria, who happens to [[Identical Stranger|look exactly like her]], because Setzer is planning to kidnap Maria.
* This is the premise of the DS strategy-[[RPG]] ''[[Rondo of Swords]]''. A prince is killed during an invasion, and asks his body double to stand in for him permanently. Since the double has been doing this for years already, he does a fairly convincing job, though "Serdic's" memory turn out to have some rather conspicuous holes.
* Most of the first part of ''[[Wild ARMs XF]]'' revolves around Clarissa impersonating [[Identical Stranger|Princess Alexia]].
==
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Torg is [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/19990706 forced into impersonating Lord Torgamous], a medieval warlord who [[Identical Stranger|just happens to look exactly like him]]. [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/19990710 It doesn't work out so well.]
** Arguably, the Torg Potter arcs are this as well, although it requires little effort on Torg's part to pull it off.
==
* The ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' episode "Knight Time" uses this plot, with Batman disappearing, and Superman putting on his costume. Bane sure picked the wrong episode to return in...
** "I'm twice as strong as before!" [Tries to beat up Superman.]
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* In the ''[[Batman: The Brave and the Bold]]'' episode "Night of the Batmen," Green Arrow, Aquaman, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man all independently decide to fill in for an injured Batman. In this case, it's the impersonators that learn the Aesop, that Batman doesn't need anyone's help, because he's Batman. Even working together, they end up being captured, and Batman has to build a robotic suit and rescue them while he's still recovering.
==
* Canadian Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer [http://www.robertfulford.com/RahimJaffer.html was impersonated on a radio phone-in show by an aide] in March 2001. He was apparently double booked. And the aide sounds nothing like him.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Disguise Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Radio]]
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[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:In Another Man's Shoes]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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